
Book_ 



.T5 




Sir ). (',. Fitch. 



Lectures on Teaching 



IJV 



Sir J. G. FITCH, M.A. 



One of Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools 



NEW EDITION 




SYRACUSE, N. Y. 

C. W, BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 
1900 









'■^•SlZijo 



PEEFACE. 



In" 1879 the Senate of the University of Cambridge, in 
compliance with numerous memorials from Head-masters 
and others, determined to take measures with a view to 
encourage among those who intended to adopt the pro- 
fession of teaching, the study of the principles and prac- 
tice of their art. In furtherance of this design a 
^^ Teachers' Training Syndicate '' was appointed, and that 
body shortly afterwards put forth a scheme of examina- 
tion in the history, the theory, and the practice of Educa- 
tion. The first examination under this scheme was held 
in June 1880. The Syndicate also resolved to provide 
that courses of lectures should be given during the 
academical year 1879-80. The introductory course on the 
History of Education, and the life and work of eminent 
teachers, was delivered by the Eev. E. H. Quick in 
Michaelmas Term. In the following Easter Term, Mr. 
James Ward, Fellow of Trinity College, lectured on Men- 
tal Science in its special relation to teaching ; and the 
second course, which fell to my own share, was delivered 
in the Lent Term, and related mainly to the practical 
aspects of the schoolmaster's work. 

It has been considered by some of those most interested 
in this experiment that this, the first course of lectures on 



iv Preface. 

the Art of Teaching specially addressed to the members 
of an English University, might properly be placed 
within reach of a somewhat wider circle of students. In 
carrying out this suggestion, I have not thought it neces- 
sary to 'abandon the free and familiar forms of address 
appropriate to a lecture, or attempted to give to what is 
here said the character of a complete treatise. Nor did I 
deem it advisable, out of regard to the supposed dignity 
of an academic audience, to keep out of view those simple 
and elementary considerations which, though usually dis- 
cussed in their relation to the lower class of schools, lie 
really at the basis of all sound and skilful teaching, 
whether in high schools or low. 

Some explanation may seem to be needed of the nomen- 
clature which is here used in distinguishing different 
classes of Schools. It would doubtless be an advantage 
to employ in England the same terminology which is 
adopted throughout the Continent. But the term " Sec- 
ondary School" in France, Germany, and Switzerland 
covers all the institutions which lie between the Elemen- 
tary School and the University ; and it is manifest that 
within these wide limits some further distinction is 
needed, in England at least, to mark the different aims 
of schools so far asunder as Winchester or Clifton, and a 
humble commercial school. Such phrases as ^^ Enseigne- 
ment Superieur" and '' Enseignement Moyen" would 
hardly indicate this distinction with sufficient accuracy, 
and I have given on page 48 my reasons for thinking that 
the terms "First, Second, and Third Grade," suggested 
by the Schools Inquiry Commissioners, will not find per- 
manent acceptance in this country. So I have been fain 
to fall back upon the words Primary, Secondary, and High 



Preface, v 

School, not because I think them necessarily the best ; 
but because they mark with tolerable clearness the prac- 
tical distinctions I have tried to make ; because they are 
equally appropriate to schools for boys and for girls ; and 
because they do not, like such words as Classical, Com- 
mercial, and Technical, connote any theory defining the 
kind of study specially suited to a particular age or rank 
in life. 

It seems right "to add that this book is not, and does 
not profess to be, a manual of method. Indeed it may 
well be doubted whether at the present stage of our edu- 
cational experience any body of rules whatever could be 
safely formulated and declared to be the best. Nor is it 
certain, even though the best conceivable methods could 
be put forth with authority, that more harm than good 
would not be done, if by them teachers were deterred 
from exercising their ow^n judgment, or became less sen- 
sible of the responsibility which lies upon them of adapt- 
ing methods to their own special circumstances and needs. 
I cannot regret, even though the book proves profoundly 
disappointing to those — if any such there be — who sup- 
pose teaching to be a knack or artifice, the secret of which 
may be acquired, like that of dancing or swimming, in a 
short course of lessons. All that has been attempted here 
has been to invite intending teachers to look in succession 
at each of the principal problems they will have to solve ; 
to consider what subjects have to be taught, and what are 
the reasons for teaching them ; and so, by bringing to- 
gether a few of the plainer results of experience, to place 
readers in a position in which it will be a little easier for 
them to devise and w^ork out methods for themselves. No 
one can be more conscious than I am of the incomplete 



vi Preface. 

and provisional character of these first lectures ; but I 
cannot doubt that the University, in seeking to promote 
investigations into the philosophy and the practice of the 
teacher^s art, is entering on an honorable and most prom- 
ising field of public usefulness ; and that, under her sanc- 
tion, future explorers in this field will do much to make 
the work of honest learning and of noble teaching simpler, 
more effective, and more delightful to the coming gen- 
erations. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. THE TEACHER AND HIS ASSISTANTS. 

Introduction 15 

Relation of the University to the teaching profession 17 

Teaching not to be stereotyped 20 

Teaching both an Art and a Science 22 

^ Quahfications of the Ideal Teacher 23 

^ Knowledge of the thing to be taught 24 

Preparation 26 

Extra-professional Knowledge 26 

Temper 29 

Activity and cheerfulness 31 

Avoidance of Pedantry 34 

Power of describing and narrating 87 

Freshness of mind 38 

Sympathy 39 

The work of Assistants 40 

Limits to their responsibility , 43 

School Councils 44 

Student-teachers 47 

The Teacher's aims ., 48 

II. THE SCHOOL, ITS AIMS AND ORGANIZATION. 

Limits to School-work 52 

Five departments of School-instruction 53 

Their relative importance 54 

Primary, Secondary, and High Schools 57 

The studies appropriate for each 60 

What is a liberal education ? 60 

The grading of Schools 61 

Day and boarding Schools 63 

True relation of the School to the Home ; 64 

Bifurcation and modern departments 67 

Girls' Schools 70 

Distribution of time 72 

vii 



viii Contents, 

PAOB 

Classification 74 

Entrance Examination 76 

Fees 77 

III. THE SCHOOL -ROOM AND ITS APPLIANCES. 

The physical conditions of successful teaching 79 

Space and light . 79 

Desks 82 

Ventilation and Warmtlk 84 

Furniture and Apparatus 66 

Comeliness of a School 88 

Registration and School book-keeping 89 

Tabulated Reports of progress 90 

Note-books for Teachers and Scholars 93 

Text-books 96 

Tests of a good School-book 98 

School libraries 99 

School museums 103 

Costly apparatus not always the best .... 104 

IV. DISCIPLINE. 

The Teacher as a ruler and administrator 107 

Commands to be well considered before they are given 109 

Over-governing Ill 

Right and wrong uses of mechanical drill 112 

Corporate life of a School 114 

Child-nature to be studied before insisting on rules 115 

School-time to be filled with work 116 

The law of Habit.... 118 

Its bearing on School life and work c. 119 

Recreation and gymnastics 120 

Sunday discipline in boarding schools 123 

Rewards: how to use and to economize them 124 

Happiness of children 127 

Punishments and their purpose 128 

Principles to be kept in view 128 

The sense of shame 131 

Tasks as punishments 132 

The discipline of consequences. . . ., 134 

Why inadequate for the purposes of the State 135 

And inadequate for School purposes 135 

The best kinds of punishment 138 

Corporal punishment 138 

How to dispense with punishments 140 

V. LEARNING AND REMEMBERING. 

The law of mental suggestion 141 

Different forms of association 143 



Contents. ix 



PAGE 

The process of remembering 144 

Mode of establishing permanent associations 145 

(1) Frequent Repetition, (2) Interest in the thing learned 145 

Verbal and rational memory 148 

Learning by heart when legitimate 149 

How to commit to memory 153 

Memory to be supplemented by reflection 154 

And strengthened by exercise 155 

Tests of a good memoriter lesson 156 

Printed catechisms 158 

Eelations of memory to intelligence 161 

The uses of forgotten knowledge 162 

Oral instruction— its advantages and its dangers 164 

Self -tuition 166 

Book-work, its advantages and shortcomings 167 

Home and written exercises 169 

Conditions to be fulfilled by them 170 

Illustrative examples 173 

VI. EXAMINING. 

Purposes to be served by questioning 176 

A Socratic dialogue 178 

The Socratic method in its application to Schools 181 

Characteristics of good oral questioning 182 

Clearness, Terseness, Point 182 

Simplicity, Directness, Continuity = 185 

Different forms of answer 187 

Collective answering deceptive 189 

Mutual questioning 190 

The inquisitive spirit 191 

Books of questions 192 

Written examinations, their use and abuse 194 

Dishonest preparation 197 

Legitimate preparation 198 

How to frame a good Examination paper 200 

And to estimate the answers 203 

Venial and punishable blunders 208 

The morality of Examinations 209 

Vn. PREPARATORY TRAINING. 

Principles to be kept in view in Infant discipline 212 

The training of the Senses 213 

The Kindergarten 214 

Its merits 215 

Limits to its usefulness 217 

The art of Reading 220 

Anomalies of the English Alphabet 221 

Proposals to reform it , .- 228 



Contents, 



PAGE 

Modes of teaching Eeading 225 

Reading boolcs 228 

Spelling 230 

Dictation and Transcription 233 

Words to be used as well as spelled 234 

Thoughtful and effective reading 236 

Oral expression 239 

Writing and mode of teaching it 240 

Locke's directions 242 

VIII. THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE. 

Language long the staple of school instruction 245 

Reasons for this 245 

Greek and Latin 248 

Purposes once served by the learning of Latin 250 

Some of these no longer useful — 250 

" Classical" Schools 253 

The true place of Latin in the schools of the future 254 

In High Schools and in Secondary Schools 255 

Comparison of Latin with English forms 257 

How much Grammar should be learned by heart 261 

Exercises in translation from the first 263 

Literature to be studied early 264 

The place of Latin in a primary school 266 

Etymology — Prefixes and Affixes 269 

Modern foreign languages 269 

Purposes and methods of teaching them . , 270 

Audition 273 

The choice of foreign teachers 275 

IX. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

The relation of English to other linguistic studies 277 

Grammar as an Art not to be acquired by technical rules. 278 

Grammar as a Science 278 

A vernacular language to be studied analytically 281 

Classification of English words 283 

Logical and Grammatical Analysis 287 

Example of Analysis 289 

Verbal Analysis 292 

Composition 294 

Paraphrase ; examples 296 

Precis- writing 299 

Versification 300 

The study of English Literature 301 

Principles and Methods to be kept in view 302 

Critical analysis not destructive of literary enjoyment 304 

The history of literature 305 



Contents. xi 



PAGE 

X. ARITHMETIC AS AN ART. 

Why Arithmetic should be taught 307 

It is both an Art and a Science 307 

Robert Recorde's Arithmetick 309 

The place of Arithmetic among school studies 312 

Its practical uses 314 

Skill in Computation , how to obtain it 315 

The discipline of an Arithmetic class 316 

Exercises in words as well as in figures 317 

Answers to be kept out of sight 318 

Oral or Mental Arithmetic 320 

Its uses and abuses 321 

Examples of its legitimate use 322 

Exercises in weighing and measuring 326 

Rapidity and exactness 328 

Exercises in ingenuity and invention 330 

Practical applications of Arithmetic 332 

Decimalizing English monej' 333 

Visible relation to business no test of real utility 333 

Practical Geometry 334 

XI. ARITHMETIC AS A SCIENCE. 

Its disciplinal value 337 

Inductive and deductive methods of reasoning 338 

Arithmetic a training in deductive logic 340 

Our artificial notation 343 

Methods of elucidating it 344 

Other Scales of Notation 346 

The Systeme Metrique 347 

Methods of demonstrating simple rules — Subtraction 348 

Arithmetical parsing 352 

The teaching of Fractions 353 

Illustration of demonstrative exercises 354 

The use of formuloi 355 

Proportion 358 

Extraction of Roots 358 

Synthesis before Analysis 359 

Analogous truths in Arithmetic and Geometry 363 

True purpose of mathematical teaching 365 

XII. GEOGRAPHY AND THE LEARNING OF FACTS. 

Objects to be kept in view in teaching geography 367 

Its use (1) as information, (2) as mental discipline 367 

Home Geography , 370 

Lessons on earth and water 371 

Order of teaching geographical facts 372 

No necessary sequence of difficulty or importance 373 



xii Contents. 



PAGB 

The use of a globe 375 

Measurement of approximate distances STG 

Physical Geography 377 

Its influence on national character and history 378 

Maps o81 

Verbal description of phenomena , '. S8'2 

Fact-lore 3!:5 

Object-lessons 38C 

Their use and their abuse 387 

Lessons on general information 387 

Subjects suited for such lessons 388 

A basis of fact needed for future teaching of science 389 

Technical terms 391 

XIII. HISTORY. 

Purpose of historical teaching 394 

Text-books, and their legitimate use 395 

The Bible a model of history 307 

Great epochs to be studied first 399 

Chronology 402 

Right and wrong ways of teaching it 403 

Mnemonic methods of learning Chronology 404 

Biography 405 

Lessons on great writers , 408 

Historical readings 408 

The poetry of history 411 

Picturesque teaching and its relation to detail 413 

Lessons on the Government and Constitution 414 

The training for citizenship 415 

XIV. NATURAL SCIENCE. 

The place of Physical Science among school studies 418 

Its claims to rank as part of a liberal education 421 

The utilities of physical truths 423 

Their beauty and intellectual attractiveness 424 

The disciplinal value of the inductive process 425 

The search for the causes of phenomena 427 

Reasons and explanations not discoverable, but only facts 429 

Large truths instead of small ones 430 

What are " laws " of Nature ? 430 

Application of the methods of inductive investigation to the business 

of life 431 

The relation of science to skilled industry , 433 

Technical and Trade Schools 435 

Subjects of physical inquiry suited to form part of general education. 436 

Scientific terminology . . 438 

Lessons on common things not necessarily scientific 441 

General not special training 443 



Contents, xiii 



PAGK 

XV. THE CORRELATION OF STUDIES. 

Review of the curriculum of school studies 446 

Multum non multa ; 447 

Distribution of time not necessarily proportioned to the importance 

of subjects.... < 448 

The contending claim of numerous subjects. 449 

The convertibility of intellectual forces 450 

Adaptation of the school course to individual wants and aptitudes... . 451 

Religious and moral instruction 452 

Moral teaching latent in school discipline 455 

Indirect moral teaching in school lessons 459 

The ideal life and work of a school 461 

The vocation of the true teacher 461 



UXORI DILECTISSIM^, 

GUI OPERA ET CONSILIIS ADJUVANTI 

SI QUID UTILE VEL HODIE SCRIPSI 

VEL UNQUAM EGI 

ACCEPTUM REFERO, 

D. 



LECTURES ON TEACHING, 



I. THE TEACHER AND HIS ASSISTANTS. 

That the University of Cambridge should institute a 
course of lectures on the Art and Method of 
Teaching is a significant fact in the history i^t^o^^<=ti°^- 
cf Education in England. We have in this fact a recogni- 
tion, on high authority, of a principle which has hitherto 
been but imperfectly admitted, in relation to the higher 
forms of school life and instruction, although it has been 
seen in most beneficial application to the elementary 
schools. That principle I take to be, that there is in the 
teacher's profession the same difference which is observa- 
ble in all other human employments between the skilled 
and the unskilled practitioner, and that this difference de- 
pends in large measure on a knowledge of the best rules 
and methods which have to be used, and of the principles 
which underlie and justify those rules. It is easy to say 
of a schoolmaster " nascitur non jit^^ and to give this as 
a reason why all training and study of method are super- 
fluous. But we do not reason thus in regard to any other 
profession, even to those in which original power tells 
most, and in which the mechanic is most easily distin- 
•. ' - - - - ' - - - 15 



1 6 Lectures on Teaching. 

guishable from the inspired artist. For when in the de- 
partment of painting yon meet with a heaven-born 
genius, you teach him to draw ; and you know that what- 
ever his natural gifts may be, he will be all the better 
pro tanto, for knowing something about the best things 
that have been done by his predecessors; for studying 
their failures and their successes, and the reason why 
some have succeeded and others have failed. It is not 
the office of professional training in art, in law or in medi- 
cine, to obliterate the natural distinctions which are the 
result of special gifts ; but rather to bring them into 
truer prominence, and to give to each of them the best 
opportunities of development. And if it be proved, as 
indeed I believe it to be demonstrable, that some acquain- 
tance with the theory, history and rules of teaching may 
often serve to turn one who would be a moderate teacher 
into a good one, a good one into a finished and accom- 
plished artist, and even those who are least qualified by 
nature into serviceable helpers, then -we shall need no bet- 
ter vindication of the course on which we are about to 
enter. 

It seems scarcely needful to reply to the contention of 
TeacMne those who urge that the art of teaching is 
fcM-nedby^** to be learned by practice, that it is a matter 
practice only. Qf experience only, that a man becomes a 
teacher as he becomes a swimmer, not by talking about 
it, but by going into the water and learning to keep his 
head above the surface. Experience it is true is a good 
school, but the fees are high, and the course is apt to be 
long and tedious. And it is a great part of the economy 
of life to know how to turn to profitable account the ac- 
cumulated experience of others. I know few. things much 
more pathetic than the utterances of some Head-masters 



The Teacher and His Assistants, 17 

at their annual conferences, at which one after another, 
even of those who have fought their way to the foremost 
rank of their profession, rises up to say : " We have been 
making experiments all our lives ; we have learned much, 
but we have learned it at the expense of our pupils ; and 
much of the knowledge which has thus slowly come into 
our possession might easily have been imparted to us at 
the outset, and have saved us from many mistakes." The 
truth in regard to the ofhce of a teacher is that which 
Bacon has set forth in its application to the larger work 
of life, ^' Studies perfect nature and are perfected by ex- 
perience : for natural abilities are like natural plants that 
need pruning by study. And studies themselves do give 
forth directions too much at large, except they be 
bounded in by experience." There is here, I think, a 
true estimate of the relation between natural aptitude, 
the study of principles and methods, and the lessons of 
experience. Each is indispensable, you cannot do with- 
out all three, you are not justified in exalting one at the 
expense of the rest. It is in the just synthesis of these 
three elements of qualification that we must hope to find 
the thoroughly equipped schoolmaster, the teacher of the 
future. And of these three elements, it is manifest that 
it is the second only which the University can attempt 
to supply. She cannot hope to give the living power, the 
keen insight into child-nature, which distinguish the born 
teacher, the man of genius, from the ordinary pedagogue. 
The University does not need to be reminded -^1^^^^ 
that the best part of a teacher's equipment ^a^do^to"^ 
is incommunicable in the form of pedagogic improve it. 
lectures ; and that w^hen she undertakes to give a profes- 
sional diploma to the schoolmaster, some of the most im- 
portant qualifications of the office — as zeal, faithfulness. 



1 8 Lectures on Teaching, 

self-consecration, and personal fitness — will escape her 
analysis and defy her power to test them. She is con- 
scious of the inevitable limitations under which she 
works, in regard to this, as indeed to all other of the 
learned professions. It suffices for her to say that she will 
attempt to communicate only that which is communi- 
cable ; and to test so much as in its nature is capable of 
being tested, and no more. Nor can the University to 
any appreciable extent supervise the actual professional 
practice of her sons and daughters, or follow them into 
the schoolroom, the laboratory and the home, to see how 
well they do their work, and lay to heart the lessons which 
experience has to teach. But she can help to call atten- 
tion to principles of teaching ; she can record, for the 
guidance and information of future teachers, the details 
of the best work which has been done aforetime ; she can 
accumulate rules and canons of the didactic art, can warn 
against mistakes, can analyze the reasons why so much of 
scholastic work has often been jo3dess, dull and de- 
pressing, can set up year by year a higher standard of 
professional excellence, can " allure to brighter worlds and 
lead the way." 

Shall we attribute this newly awakened ambition to 
^^ . ^ ^ nothing but the restless spirit of modern 

The Art of -i ^ o r 

Teaching, the academic life : to discontent with the old plain 

proper con- i , i. . 

cernofa duty of encouraging learning, devotion and 
research, to a morbid and uneasy hankering 
after " fresh fields and pastures new^' ? I think not. The 
great function of a University is to teach ; and to sup- 
ply the w:)rld with its teachers. The very title of Doc- 
tor, which marks the highest academic distinction in each 
of the faculties of Law, Divinity and Physic implies that 
the holder is qualified to teach the art which he knows. 



77?^ Teacher and His Assistants, 19 

And if the experience of these later times has brought 
home to us the conviction that the art of com^municating 
knowledge^ of rendering it attractive to a learner^ is an 
art which has its own laws and its own special phil- 
osophy ; it is surely fitting that a great University, the 
bountiful mother whose special office it is to care alike for 
all the best means of human culture, and to assign to all 
arts and sciences theor true place and relation, should find 
an honored place for the master-science, a science which 
is closely allied to all else which she teaches — the science 
of teaching itself. It is not good that this science, or in- 
deed any other science, should be mainly pursued per se, 
in sejoarate training institutions or professional colleges, 
where the horizon is necessarily bounded, and where every- 
thing is learned with a special view to the future necessi- 
ties of the school or the class-room. It is to the Univer- 
sities that the power is given in the highest degree of 
co-ordinating the various forms of preparation for the 
business of life ; of seeing in due proportion the study 
and the practice, the art and the science, the intellectual 
efforts which make the man, as well as those which make 
the lawyer or the divine. It is to the Universities that the 
public look for those influences which will prevent the 
nobler professions from degenerating into crafts and 
trades. And if the schoolmaster is to become something 
more than a mere pedant ; to know the rules and for- 
mula of his art, and at the same time to estimate them 
at their true value, it is to his University that he ought to 
look for guidance ; and it is from his University that he 
should seek in due time the attestation of his qualifica- 
tions as a teacher ; because that is the authority which 
can testify that he is not merely a teacher, but a teacher 
and something else. . 



2 Lectures on Teaching, 

Even at the risk of lingering a little longer at the 
threshold^ I am tempted to refer briefly to 
iiot^£scour- one other objection which is often felt by 
Ifudy of ^ thoughtful people, and which is doubtless 
present in the minds of some of you, to the 
trial of the novel experiment in which we who are 
assembled here are all interested. Teaching js an art, it 
may be said, which esj)ecially requires freshness and vigor 
of mind. The ways of access to the intelligence and the 
conscience of learners are manifold ; different circum- 
stances and intellectual conditions require diiferent ex- 
pedients. Variety and versatility are of the very essence 
of successful teaching. If by seeking to formulate the 
science of method, you encourage the belief that one 
mode of teaching is always right and all others are wrong, 
you will destroy the chance of new invention and dis- 
covery, and will do much to render teaching more stereo- 
typed and lifeless than ever. An'd even if it be admitted 
that a perfect set of rules for practice is desirable and at- 
tainable, we are not yet in a position to lay them down ; 
and any attempt to fix educational principles, and to claim 
for them an authoritative or scientific character, is at pres- 
ent premature, and therefore likely to prove mischievous. 
This is an argument on which I, for one, should look with 
special seriousness, if it were not practically answered by 
every day's observation and experience. It has been my 
lot to see schools of very different ranks and pretensions, 
from the highest to the lowest ; and the one thing which 
impresses me most is that the schools under untrained per- 
sons, who have given no special attention to the theory of 
their art, are curiously alike. There is nothing more 
monotonous than ignorance. It is among those who have 
received no professional preparation that one finds the 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 21 

same stupid traditional methods^ the same habit of tell- 
ing scholars to learn instead of teaching them ; the same 
spectacle of a master sitting enthroned at one end of a 
room and calling np two or three at a time to say their 
lessons^ while the rest, presumably occupied in prepara- 
tion, are following their own devices. Let us appeal on 
this point to the experience of other professions. Is it 
the effect of good professional training in medicine or in 
law to produce a hurtful uniformity either in opinion or 
practice ? Is it not on the contrary true that the most 
original methods of procedure, the most fruitful new 
speculations, come precisely from the men who have best 
studied the philosophy of their own special subject, and 
who know best what has been thought and done by other 
workers in the same field ? So in teaching, the freshest 
and most ingenious methods originate with those men 
and women who have read and thought most about the 
rationale of their art. 

And if in this place we are in any degree successful in 

layins^ down principles of action, and In 

-, . , <> , 1 . T ..-,-, Independent 

evolvmg a lew 01 the simpler practical dedue- tiiotigiit 

. more impor- 

tions from those principles, the truest test of tantthan 
our success will be found in bringing home to 
every earnest student the conviction that good teaching is 
not an easy thing ; that those who undertake to call out 
the intelligence and fashion the character of children are 
undertaking to deal with the most complex and wonder- 
ful phenomena in the world ; that the philosophy of 
the teacher's art is yet in its infancy ; that the best re- 
sults we are yet able to attain are only provisionally ser- 
viceable until they are absorbed or superseded by some- 
thing better ; and that it is part of the duty of every one 
who enters the profession to magnify his office, to look on 



22 Lectures on Teaching. 

each of the problems before him in as many lights as pos- 
sible, and to try by his own independent experiments to 
malie the path of duty easier, safer, and happier for his 
successors. 

The question is often asked, " Is Education an Art or 
a Science ? '^ and at present the answers to this question 
are not unanimous. But in truth no compendious reply 
Teaching' ^^ possible. The object of Science is the in- 
Ar?^a vestigation of principles, of truth for its own 
Science. sake, considered as an end, not as a means to 

any further end. But it is obvious that this view alone 
will not carry us very far. It may help us to analyze men- 
tal processes and laws of human development, but it may 
leave us very impotent in the presence of the actual prob- 
lems of school-keeping and of professional work. And the 
object of Art is simply the accomplishment of a given re- 
sult by the best means. Hence we are justified in speak- 
ing of Education as an Art, because it has a complex prac- 
tical problem to solve. But this view of it alone would 
be inadequate ; for in fact teaching is both an Art and a 
Science. It aims at the accomplishment oi a piece of 
work, and is therefore an Art. It seeks to find out a ra- 
tional basis for such rules as it employs, and is therefore a 
Science. Down very deep at the root of all our failures 
and successes there lie some philosophic truths — it may 
be of ethics, or of physiology, or of psychology — which 
we 'have either heeded or disregarded, and the full recogni- 
tion of which is needed to make us perfect teachers. The 
more these underlying truths are brought to light the 
better ; and it is satisfactory to know that the University 
has made other and very effective provision for the dis- 
cussion both of the philosophy and the history of the 
teacher's work. Here, however, our task is humbler. We 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 23 

have to gather together a few of the plainer lessons of ex- 
perience, and to apply them to the actual requirements 
of the class-room and the school. Yet, if while thus re- 
garding Education as an Art we lose sight of the fact that 
it is also a Science, we shall be in danger of becoming 
empirics, and of treating our work as if it were a mere 
knack, a collection of ingenious artifices for achieving a 
certain desired end. This is a danger not less real than 
would be incurred by those who, in their zeal to vindi- 
cate the claims of Education to the name and character 
of a Science, resolved it merely into a series of speculations 
into the relative value of different forms of human knowl- 
edge, or into the constitution of the human mind. Those 
wdio ask us to think of Education as a Science must re- 
member that it is an Applied Science, whose principles are 
largely derived from experiment and observation, and 
need to be constantly reduced to practice and brought to 
the test of utility. And we on the other hand who are 
seeking for some rules and counsels by which we may 
guide our practice and economize our resources must not 
forget that such rules and counsels have no claim upon 
our acceptance, except in so far as they have their origin 
in a true philosophy, and can be justified by reason and by 
the constitution of human nature. 

Now in regard to all the duties of' life there has to be 
considered the correlation between the thing jhe auaiif i- 
to be done and the doer of it; the qualities J|g°e?r*^ 
of the agent largely determine the character teacher. 
and the results of the work. In all mechanical labor, in 
which matter alone has to be acted on, the physical 
strength and tactual skill of the artisan are the determin- 
ing forces ; his motives and moral qualifications have little 
to do with the result. But in the case of the schoolmaster. 



24 Lectures on Teaching. 

as in that of the priest^, or of the statesman, mind and 
character have to be influenced ; and it is found that in 
the long-run nothing can influence character like char- 
acter. You teach, not only by what you say and do, but 
very largely by what you are. Hence there is a closer cor- 
respondence in this department of human labor than in 
others between the quality of the work and the attributes 
of the workman. You cannot dissociate the two. And 
because in the profession of teaching the ruler or agent 
comes into closer contact with the person ruled than in 
any other profession, it becomes here specially needful to 
inquire not only what is the character of the work to be 
done, but what manner of men and women they should 
be who undertake to do it. We may then, I think, use- 
fully employ some of our time in considering rather the 
artist than his art — the qualifications which the ideal 
teacher should bring to his w^ork. 

It seems a trite thing to say that the teacher of a given 
subjects should first of all possess a full and 
accurate^ exact knowledge of the subject which he es- 
orfhe^thmg says to teach. But I am not sure that the 
^^^ * full significance of this obvious maxim is al- 
ways recognized. Some of us imagine that if we keep a 
little ahead of our pupils, we shall succeed very well. But 
the truth is that no' one can teach the whole, or even the 
half of what he knows. There is a large percentage of 
waste and loss in the very act of transmission, and you 
can never convey into another mind nearly all of what 
you know or feel on any subject. Before you can impart 
a given piece of knowledge, you yourself must not only 
have appropriated it, you must have gone beyond it and 
all around it ; must have seen it in its true relations to 
other facts or truths ; must know out of what it origi- 



The Teacher and His Assistants, 25 

nated^ and to what others it is intended to lead. .A per- 
son cannot teach a rule of Arithmetic — say division — 
intelligently/ without having himself mastered many ad- 
vanced rules, nay, without some knowledge of Algebra as 
well. Your own experience, if you watch it, will force 
this truth upon you. You hear a story, or you receive 
an explanation of a new fact. The thing seems perfectly 
intelligible to you, and you receive it with satisfaction and 
without a suspicion that anything more is wanting. But 
you try to tell the story or rej^roduce the explanation, and 
you find quite unexpectedly that there are weak points 
in your memory, that something or other which did not 
seem necessary when you were receiving it is necessary to 
your communicating it : and that this something lies out- 
side and beyond the truth or incident itself. Or you are 
giving a lesson on some subject on which your information 
is limited, or has been specially prepared for the occasion, 
and you give it under a consciousness that you are very 
near the boundary of your own knowledge, and that if 
certain further explanations were asked for you could not 
supply them. Is it not true that this latent consciousness 
begins to show itself in your teaching ; that you falter 
and speak less positively, and that your scholar who shows 
curious acuteness in discerning whether you are speaking 
fiom a full mind or not finds out the truth directly, and 
so your lesson is a failure ? And the moral of this is 
that if a certain amount of accuracy, or a certain strength 
of conviction, is necessary for a learner, much greater 
accuracy, and a still stronger conviction, is needful for 
the teacher : if you want to teach well the half of a sub- 
ject, know first for yourself the whole or nearly the whole 
of it : have a good margin of thought and of illustration 
in reserve for dealing with the unexpected questions ?nd 



2 6 Lectures on Teaching. 

difficulties which may emerge in the course of the les- 
son, and look well before beginning, not only at the thing 
you want to teach, but at as much else as possible of what 
lies near it, or is akin to it. 

And if this be true there arises the necessity for look- 

ina: into ourselves and carefully sjauarino' our 
Preparation. ^ ^„ .•,•.-. 

resources beiore we began to give even the 

humblest lesson. Before undertaking a matter so simple 
as hearing a class read, we should glance over the passage 
and determine on what words it will be well to dwell by 
way of explanation and what form of illustration should 
be brought to bear upon it. Even if you are going to give 
an exposition of a rule in Arithmetic, or of the use of the 
Ablative, it is wise to select beforehand and mentally to 
rehearse your illustrative examples ; to see that the in- 
stances chosen have no irrelevant factors in them, but are 
calculated to furnish the most effective examples of the 
particular truth which you wish to explain. However sim- 
ple the subject of a lesson, it is never so good when un- 
premeditated as it would be with a little pre-arrangement 
and forethought. And for all lessons which do not lie 
in the ordinary routine, the careful preparation of notes 
is indispensable ; it is only by such preparation that you 
can determine how much can fairly be attempted in the 
prescribed time, what is the order in which the parts 
should be taken up, how they should cohere, at what 
points you should recapitulate, and how you can give unity 
and point to the general impression 'you desire to leave. 

And further, a true teacher never thinks his education 
The teacher complete, but is always seeking to add to his ! 

?5;?^14^i" Q^y32 knowledD:e. The moment any man ceases / 
ways he a ^ -^ . < 

learner. ^^ i^q ^ systematic student, he ceases to be ' 

an effective teacher ; he gets out of sympathy with 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 27 

learners, he loses sight of the process by which new truth 
enters into the mind ; he becomes unable to understand 
fully the difficulties experienced by others who are re- 
ceiving knowledge for the first time. It is by the act of 
acquiring, and by watching the process by which you your- 
self acquire, that you can help others to acquire. It is 
not intended by this that the thing thus acquired should 
be merely a greater store of what may be called school 
learning, or of what has a conscious and visible bearing 
on the work of school. It is true that we can never 
know all that is to be known, even about the subjects 
which we teach in schools. Mathematics, History, Phi- 
lology are constantly subject to new developments, are 
stretching out into new fields, and becoming capable of 
new and unexpected applications to the needs and to the 
business of life. There should never be a time in the 
history of a teacher at which, even in regard to these 
purely scholastic subjects, he is content to say, " I know 
now all that needs lo be known for my purpose. I have 
an ample store of facts and illustrations at my command, 
and may now draw freely upon it." Still the question, 
" What has this or that study to do with the main busi- 
ness of my life ? How far will this kind of reading tell 
upon my professional work in school ? " though it nat- 
urally occurs to a conscientious man, is narrowing and 
rather ignoble. The man is something greater than the 
teacher. The human needs crave to be satis- 

Notof 

fied even more than the professional. Our scholastic 
work makes the centre of our world no doubt ; 
but life needs a circumference as well as a centre, and that 
circumference is made up of sympathies and tastes which 
are extra-professional. And in relation to the tastes and 
reading of your own leisure I would say : When your 



28 Lectures on Teaching. 

more strictly professional work is done, follow resoljitely 
your own bent ; cultivate that side of your intellectual 
life on which you feel that the most fruitful results are 
to be attained, and do not suppose that your profession 
demands of you a cold and impartial interest in all truth 
alike, or that what to others is a solace and delight, to 
you is to be nothing but so much stock in trade. If when 
I see a school, and ask the teacher what is its special fea- 
ture, or in what subject the scholars take most interest, 
he replies, '' Oh, there is nothing distinctive about our 
course, we pay equal attention to all subjects,^' I know 
well that his heart is not in his work. For over and above 
the necessary and usual subjects every good school ought 
to reflect in some way the special tastes of the teacher. 
The obvious demands of your profession and of the public 
must first be satisfied. And when they are satisfied, one 
mind will be drawn to the exact sciences, another to 
poetry and the cultivation of the imaginative faculty, 
another to the observation of the phenomena of nature, 
a fourth to the sciences of history and of man. Be sure 
that no study thus honestly and affectionately pursued 
can be without important bearings on your special work. 
Everything you learn, even in matters like these, will tell 
in ways you little suppose on the success of your lessons, 
will furnish happy digressions, or will suggest new illus- 
trations. " Tout est dans tout,^^ said Jacotot, by which 
I suppose he meant that all true knowledge is nearly akin, 
and that any one fact honestly acquired sheds light on 
many others, and makes every other fact easier to acquire. 
The one thing you dread most in your pupils, dread most 
in yourself — stagnation, acquiescence in routine, torpor of 
mind, indifference to knowledge. When your own soul 



77?^ Teacher and His Assistants, 29 

loses. the receptive faculty, ceases to give a joyous welcome 
to new truth, be sure you have lost the power of stimu- 
lating the mental activity of others, or of instructing them 
to any real purpose. 

Old Eoger Ascham in his Scliolemaster, the oldest edu- 
cational book in England, describes his ideal student and 
teacher as Philoponos, " one who hath lust to labour," and 
Zetetikos, " one that is always desirous to search out any 
doubt, not ashamed to learn of the meanest, nor afraid to 
go to the greatest, until he be perfectly taught and fully 
satisfied." And these qualities are still as indispensable 
as ever. There must be in the perfectly successful teacher 
a love of work for its own sake. The profession is no 
doubt laborious ; but as it has been well said, " It is not 
labor, but vexation that hurts a man." Trouble comes 
from mismanaged labor, from distasteful labor, from labor 
which w^e feel ourselves to be doing ill, but not from 
labor itself when it is well organized and successful. Then 
there arises a positive delight in the putting forth of 
power, and in the sense that difficulties are being over- 
come 

Familiar as the truth is, it is worth reiterating that 
while teaching is one of the professions which 
most tries the patience, it is one in which the ^^^^^' 
maintenance of a cheerful and happy temper is most es- 
sential. Some of us are conscious of a tendency to hasty, 
unguarded words, to petulance, and to sudden flashes of 
injustice. Such a tendency may become a great misfor- 
tune to a teacher, and lead to consequences he may regret 
all his life. And I have known those who, having chosen 
the vocation of a teacher and being at the same time 
aware of their own infirmity in this respect, have so 



30 Lectures on Teaching. 

guarded and watched themselves, that their profession has 
become to them a nieans of moral discipline, and has 
sweetened and ennobled tempers naturally very hasty or 
very sour. But be this as it may, unless we are prepared 
to take some pains with ourselves and cultivate patience 
and forbearance, we are singularly out of place in the 
profession of schoolmaster. We want patience, because 
the best results of teaching come very slowly ; we want 
habitual self-command, because if we are impulsive or 
variable and do not obey our own rules we cannot hope 
scholars will obey t'hem. Chronic sullenness or acerbity 
of temper makes its possessor unhappy in any position, but 
it is a source of perpetual irritation and misery in a school. 
" That boy,^' said Dr. Johnson, when speaking of a sulky 
and unhappy looking lad, " looks like the son of a school- 
master, which is one of the very worst conditions of child- 
hood. Such a boy has no father, or worse than none, he 
never can reflect on his parent, but the reflection brings to 
his mind some idea of pain inflicted or of sorrow suffered." 
Poor Johnson's own scholastic experiences, which, both 
as learner and as teacher, had not been delightful ones, 
led him no doubt to an exaggerated view of the misery of 
school-keeping as he had seen it. But he did not exag- 
gerate the mischievous effect of a regime of brute force, 
and of a hard and ill-tempered pedagogue on the charac- 
ter of a child. Injustice breeds injustice. Every act of 
petulance or ill-temper will have some effect in deteriorat- 
ing the character of the pupils, and will be reproduced in 
their own conduct towards their juniors or inferiors. Dr. 
Channing has well said that " a boy compelled for six 
hours a day to see the countenance and hear the voice of 
a fretful, unkind, hard, or passionate man is placed in a 
school of vice/' 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 31 

The need of constant cheerfulness on the part of a 
teacher becomes more apparent when we con- 
sider the nature of childhood. In some pro- ^^^^^^^i^^^s. 
fessions an artificial gravity of demeanor is not inappro- 
priate. The clerg3anan or the surgeon has much to do 
at the bedside^ in the house of mourning, with the sick 
and the suffering, where anything approaching to levity 
would often be unbecoming. But the intercourse of a 
teacher is with the young, the strong and the happy, and 
he makes a great mistake if he thinks that a severe and 
forbidding manner is required by the dignity of his call- 
ing. A good fund of animal spirits puts the teacher at 
once into sympathetic rapport with his pupils, because it 
shows them that seriousness of purpose need not mean 
dulness, and that the possession of learning is not incom- 
patible with a true enjoyment of life. We must not for- 
get that to a little child the teacher is the possessor of un- 
fathomable erudition, the representative and embodiment 
of that learning which he himself is being urged to ac- 
quire. And if he sees that the acquirement of it has 
rather made the teacher's life gloomy than bright or joy- 
ous, 'he may not put his inference into the form of a 
proposition, but he will none the less surely acquire a 
dislike for knowledge, and arrive at the conclusion that it 
cannot be such a cheering and beautiful thing after alL 
It is well known that the men and women most influential 
in the schoolroom are those who know how to share the 
enjoyment of their scholars in the playground ; who at 
least do not frown at children's play, but show an interest 
in it, recognize it as a proper and necessary employment 
of time, and indeed can play heartily themselves when the 
proper occasion comes. Many of the influences which sur- 
round a teacher's life have a special tendency to encourage 



32 Lectures on Teaching. 

a sedentary and physically inactive habit, and it is also 
observable that persons are not unfrequently attracted to 
the profession of teaching because they are not strong, 
and are studiously inclined. But it ought never to be 
forgotten that bodily activity is a very valuable qualifica- 
tion in a teacher and should be cultivated as far as possi- 
ble ; not rapidly lost, as it too often is. That eminent 
schoolmaster showed a true appreciation of his work who 
said, " Whenever the day comes in which I can find I can- 
not run upstairs three at a time I shall think it high time 
to retire.^' 

And among other merely physical qualifications neces- 
Ouick per- ^^^3^ ^"^ ^ teacher one cannot overlook the need 
eye^and of ^^ great quickness both of eye and of ear. 
®*r- These are indispensable. In standing before 

a class, whether it be large or small, it is essential to 
stand so that every member of it should be brought into 
focus so to speak, that the eye should take in all that is 
going on, and that no act or movement should escape no- 
tice. I am more and more struck, as I look at schools, 
with the importance of this. I often see teachers who 
either place themselves so that they cannot see every 
pupil, or who, by keeping the eye fixed either on the book 
or on one particular part of the class, fail to check indiffer- 
ence or/ inattention simply because they do not see it and 
are not instantly conscious of it. No real intellectual drill 
or discipline is possible in such a class. It is a great thing 
therefore to cultivate in yourself the habit of glancing 
rapidly, of fixing the gaze instantly on any child who is 
wandering or disobedient, and applying a remedy without 
delay. And the need for a remedy will steadily diminish 
as your own vigilance increases. Let scholars know that 
every deviation from rule, every wandering look, every 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 2>?i 

carelessly written letter in a copy is sure to be at once 
recognized by your quick glance^ and they will cease very 
soon to give you much to detect. But let them see al- 
ways before them a heavy eye, an unobservant manner, 
which permits let us say two out of every three faults to 
pass undiscovered, and they are skilful enough in the 
doctrine of chances to know well in effect what this means. 
It means that the probability is two to one against the 
detection of any given fault, and you will find that in 
this way, the chances being largely in favor of the disobe- 
dient one, disobedient acts will be multiplied in far greater 
proportion still. The teacher's ear too should be trained 
to a sensitive perception of all discordant or unpermitted 
sounds. It should be acute to distinguish between the 
legitimate noise of work and the noise which impedes work 
or is inconsistent with it. Obvious as this is, many school 
masters and mistresses waste much time and add greatly 
to the difficulties of their duty by disregarding it. Quick 
sensibility, both of ear and of eye, are special natural gifts 
with a few ; but they may be acquired with the help of 
cultivation, even by those who have not been gifted by 
nature, if they only believe them to be worth having and 
take a little pains to obtain them. I may add that if a 
teacher possesses enough knowledge of the art of draw- 
ing to enable him to make impromptu rough diagramis il- 
lustrative of his lessons, the accomplishment is one which 
will add much to his effective power. 

And may we not enumerate among the physical at- 
tjibutes which go to make a perfect teacher, 
a gentle and yet an authoritative voiced There 
is necessarily a great expenditure of voice in teaching, 
and it is of much importance to know how to economize 
it. As years go on, those whose profession obliges them 



34 Lectures on Teaching. 

to talk much, ore rotundo begin to find the vocal organs 
weak and overworked, and to regret all useless exertion of 
vocal power. And thus it should be borne in mind from 
the first that simply from the point of view of one's bodily 
health it is not good to shout or cry or lift up the voice 
unnecessarily. It is a great point in what you may call 
the dynamics of teaching to effect the maximum result 
with the minimum of eft'ort. And it happens that in re- 
gard to the voice, a low tone not only eft'ects as much as 
a loud one, but it actually effects more. The key at which 
the teacher's voice is habitually pitched determines the 
tone of all the school work. Children will all shout if 
you shout. On the other hand, if you determine never to 
raise your voice w'hen you give a command they will be 
compelled to listen to you, and to this end to subjugate 
their own voices habitually, and to carry on all their work 
in quietness. The moral effect of this on the character of 
the pupils is not insignificant. A noisy school is one in 
which a great opportunity of civilizing and softening the 
manners is habitually lost. And a school whose work is 
always done on a low tone is one in which not only is the 
teacher healthier, and better able to economize the re- 
sources of his own life, but as a place of m.oral discipline 
it is far more effective. 

Touching the matter of speech, which among the 
minor conditions of effective and happy school- 

e an ry. j^eeping is of far more significance than it may 
at first appear, I should like to add that some teachers 
seem to think it necessary to affect a studied precision in 
language, and to cultivate little crotchets as to elegant 
pronunciation which are unknown outside of the school 
world. The perfection of language is the perfection of a 
transparent glass ; it is the virtue of self-effacement. By 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 35 

it and through it one mind should look right into another 
and see exactly the thing which has to be seen ; but if 
the medium itself is visible^ if it challenge attention to 
itself, it is, in just that degree, an imperfect medium, and 
fails to fulfil its highest purpose. Ars est celare art em. 
The moment our speech becomes so precise and so proper 
that its precision and propriety become themselves no- 
ticeable things, that moment we cease to be good speakers 
in the best sense of the word. Ours is the one profession 
in which there is the greatest temptation to little pedan- 
tries of this kind, and it may therefore not be unfitting to 
refer to it. He whose speech or manner proclaims him to 
be a schoolmaster is not yet a perfect adept in his art. 
We may not conceal from ourselves that in society those 
whose manners and speech betray them thus are not 
popular, and that they are not unfrequently spoken of as 
pedants. Now what is it to be a pedant ? It is to have 
our vision so narrowed by the particular duty we have in 
hand that we see it and other people's duties, so to speak, 
in false perspective, and mistake the relative importance 
of our own doings and theirs. In this sense there are 
pedants in all professions, and it must be owned that they 
are often the people most devoted to their work. But the 
profession of teaching is more often credited with this 
particular vice than any other, and for a very obvious rea- 
son. '^ We are never at our ease,'' says Charles Lamb, " in 
the presence of a schoolmaster, because we know that he 
is not at his ease in ours. He comes like Gulliver from 
among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of 
his understanding to yours. • He is so used to teaching 
that he wants to be teaching you." The truth is that the 
one exceptional circumstance of a teacher's life, the neces- 
sity of passing many hours a day with those who know so 



36 Lectures on Teaching. 

much less than ourselves^ and who^ because of their own 
To be cor- jouth and ignorance^ look uj^ to us as prodigies 
rectedty of learning, is very unfavorable to a per- 
studies, fectlj just estimate of ourselves, and is 

calculated to make us put a higher value than it de- 
serves on the sort of knowledge which gives us this acci- 
dental ascendency over the little people. We ought to 
know this and to be on our guard against it. And after 
all;, if there be a certain faulty tone of mind and character 
produced by the habit of spending much time with our 
intellectual inferiors, the true remedy is obvious ; it is 
to take care that out of school we spend our time as much 
as possible with our intellectual superiors. We may seek 
them in societ}/, or if they are not easily accessible there, 
we may always have recourse to the great silent compan- 
ions of our solitude, the wise and the noble who speak to 
us from our libraries, and in whose presence we are no 
longer teachers, but reverent disciples. 
' Another corrective to the special danger of the scholastic 

profession is to have some one intellectual in- 
and by work terest — some favorite pursuit or study — which 

is wholly unprofessional, and bears no visible 
relation to school work. I have known many teachers 
who have been saved from the narrowness and pedantry 
to which their duties would have inclined them, by their 
love of archasology or art, or their interest in some social 
or public question. This extra-scholastic interest has 
brought them into contact with other people whom they 
meet on equal terms ; it has helped them to escape from 
the habit of using the Imperative Mood, and to see their 
own professional work in truer relations with the larger 
world of thought and action, of which after all a school 
is only a small part. We all need, in playing our part in 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 37 

life, to perform some at least of it in the presence of an 
audience which habitually demands our best. 

I have spoken of the necessity for laying all your pri- 
vate reading under contribution, and for 
bringing it to bear by way of illustration or scSngand' 
otherwise in vivifying the teaching given in a ^^^^ ^^^' 
class. But to do this well it is essential that the skilled 
teacher should cultivate in himself the rather rare gift 
of telling a story well. There are some who are good 
raconteurs by nature or by instinct. They know how to 
seize the right point, to reject what is irrelevant, and to 
keep up by their mode of telling it. the hearer's interest 
in any narrative they relate. But even those who have 
no natural aptitude of this kind may acquire it by prac- 
tice, and such an aptitude when acquired is most ser- 
viceable in teaching. Watch therefore for good pieces of 
description which come in your way in books or news- 
papers, or for effective stories which you hear ; and prac- 
tice yourself often in reproducing them. Observe the 
effect of telling such a story when you give it to a class, 
see when it is that the eye brightens, and the attitude be- 
comes one of unconscious fixedness and tension ; and ob- 
serve also when it is that the interest languishes and the 
attention is relaxed. A very little experience of this kind, 
if superadded to thoughtfulness, to some care in the choice 
of materials, and to a genuine desire to interest the 
scholars, will go far to make any one of ordinary intelli- 
gence a good narrator ; and therefore to give him a new 
and effective instrument for gaining their attention and 
for doing them good. 

There is indeed an abidinor necessity for the applica- 
tion of fresh thought to every detail of school work. There 
is no method, however good, which does not want to be 



38 Lectures on Teaching. 

modified and reconstructed from time to time ; no truths 
Freshness of ^owever true^ which does not need to be stated 
mind. ^^ow and then in a new form^ and to have 

fresh spirit infused into its application. It is true 
of rules of teaching as of higher matters, " The letter 
killeth, the spirit giveth life.'' But even this is not the 
whole truth. For the spirit is constantly tending to fix 
and embody itself and to become the letter, unless we are 
ever on our guard. We know how often it has happened 
in the history of religion that a great reforming move- 
ment, which has begun in the shape of a protest, and per- 
haps a very effective protest, against formalism and me- 
chanical religion, has in time come to have its own watch- 
words and stereotyped usages, and has ended by being just 
as cold and unspiritual as that which it has sought to 
supersede. And this has been no less true in the history 
of education. The new thought, the bright rational 
method seeks to embody itself in a rule of action. While 
this process is going on, all is well. But when it is at an 
end, and the rule is arrived at, then comes the relapse 
into verbalism. Eoutine is always easier than intelligence. 
And some of the most worthless of all routine is — not the 
traditional routine of the mediaeval schools, which is 
known to be mechanical, and is accepted as such — ^but the 
routine at first devised by enthusiasts, and afterwards 
adopted by dull, uninspired people, who think that they can 
learn the method of Socrates, of Arnold, or of Frobel as 
they could learn a system of calisthenics or of short-hand. 
Carruptio optimi pessima est. It is very touching to read 
M. Michel Breal's account of a visit to Pestalozzi, at the 
end of his career. He describes the old man, pointing 
with his finger to the black-board, to his diagrams and to 
the names of the qualities of objects, while the children 



^ The Teacher and His Assistants, 39 

repeated mechanically his favorite watchwords, which they 
had learned by heart. Those words had once been full of 
meaning. Bnt they had ceased to represent real intel- 
lectual activity on the children's part, or on his. They 
had become dead formulas, though he knew it not. And 
so it will ever be, with you and with me, if we lose the 
habit of looking at all our methods with fresh eyes, of 
revising them continually, and impregnating them anew 
with life. It w^ould be a melancholy result of the humble 
and tentative efforts which, under the encouragement of 
the University, we are now seeking to make after an Art 
of teaching, if by them any of us were led to suppose that 
it was an art to be acquired by anybody once for all. In 
truth, though we may enter on the inheritance of some of 
the stored-up experience of others, each of us must in his 
own experience begin at the beginning, and be responsible 
for the adaptation of that experience to the special needs 
of his pupils, as well as to the claims of his own idiosyn- 
crasies and convictions. Nothing can ever be so effective 
as the voice, the enthusiasm, the personal influence of the 
living teacher. Without these, apparatus, pictures, helps, 
methods, degenerate soon into mere processes and a sterile 
mnemonic. And no set of rules, however good, can ever 
release us from the necessity of fashioning new rules, each 
for himself. 

And it need hardly be said here that the one crowning 
qualification of a perfect teacher is sympathy 
— sympathy with young children, with their Sympathy. 
wants and their ways ; and without this all other quali- 
fications fail to achieve the highest results. The true 
teacher ought to be drawn towards the profession by nat- 
ural inclination, by a conviction of personal fitness, and 
by a wish to dedicate himself and the best powers and 



40 Lectures on Teaching. 

faculties he has to this particular form of seryice. That 
conviction^ if it once dominates the mind of a person in 
any walk of life^ does much to ennoble and beautify even 
work which would otherwise be distasteful ; but I know 
no one calling in which the presence of that conviction is 
more necessary^ or its absence more disheartening, than 
that of a schoolmaster. Teaching is the noblest of all 
professions, but it is the sorriest of trades ; and nobody 
can hope to succeed in it who does not throw his whole 
heart into it, and who does not find a positive pleasure 
as he watches the quickened attention and heightened 
color of a little child as he finds a new truth dawning 
upon him, or as some latent power is called forth. There 
is no calling more delightful to those who like it ; none 
which seems such poor drudgery to those who enter upon 
it reluctantly or merely as a means of getting a living. 
He who takes his work as a dose is likely to find it nau- 
seous. '^^ The good schoolmaster," says Fuller, "minces 
his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on 
the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may 
go along with him." This means that he has enough 
of imaginative sympathy to project his own mind, so to 
speak, into that of his pupil, to understand what is going 
on there, and to think not only of how his lesson is being 
imparted, but also of how it is being received. But no- 
body can do this who is not fond of his work. That which 
we know and care about we may soon learn to impart ; 
that which we know and do not care about we soon cease 
to know at all, to any practical purpose. 

It is obvious that in selecting assistants you should 
seek to find as far as possible those who pos- 
Assistants. ^^^^ ^^^ qualifications you would most desire 
in yourselves. 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 41 

It is also clear as tlxe result of modern experience that 
the head teacher in every school ought to be responsible 
for the choice of each of his own assistants. But having 
secured him, what is the best use to make of him ? There 
are two opposite views on this point. There is one which 
gives the assistant the care of the whole work of a class, 
and another which makes him the teacher of a particular 
subject and sends him from class to class to give lessons 
on it. Both systems may be seen in operation in very 
good schools, and it would be hard to say that all the 
truth lies necessarily on one side, or that one mode of di- 
viding the labor is necessarily and always right. It is 
here as in governments : 

That which is best administered is best. 

One system gives scope for special ability, and assigns 
to each the work for which he is presumably fittest. But 
the disadvantages are serious. In the first place, the 
teacher of one subject only — the French or Arithmetic 
master — is generally without influence. AVhen a man con- 
fines himself to one subject he is apt to see his one sub- 
ject in a false light, and to lose sight of its relation to the 
general culture of the pupil. Perhaps too if he has a 
stronger will than his colleagues, he demands proficiency 
in his one subject at the expense of others. The class 
system avoids this particular danger, but it has the obvious 
disadvantage of setting each of your assistants to teach 
several subjects, of which it may fairly be assumed he can 
teach some much better than others. There must be a 
compromise between these two systems. I believe that 
which in the long-run secures best the unity and coher- 
ence of the school work is to assign to an assistant a 



42 Lectures on Teaching, 

definite portion of responsibility^ npt to move him about 
from place to place^ but to attacii him to a class for a 
sufficient time to make it clear that the progress or back- 
wardness of the class is to be distinctly attributed to him. 
Each assistant should be clearly identified with the work 
of particular scholars and mainly responsible for it. On 
the whole, a distribution of assistants among classes ef- 
fects this purpose better than their distribution among 
subjects. Experience is not favorable to the plan of mak- 
ing one teacher take the exclusive charge of arithmetic, 
another of writing, and another of literature. The class 
system calls out more varied power, prevents the mind of 
the teacher from always running in the same groove, and 
is more interesting to himself. He wants a change of 
occupation and of subject as much as his pupils. At the 
same time, while this seems to be the best general rule, it 
is clearly important to utilize any special gift possessed 
by an assistant and to find out in the case of every one 
such assistant what is the subject he can teach best, or in 
what work he feels most interest. If over and above his 
proper and ordinary work in his class, an assistant who 
is fond of drawing, or who sings well, or who is skilful 
in the book-keeping and supervision of registers, has appro- 
priate special work assigned to him, — work which belongs 
rather to the whole school than to the class, — such work 
will be a clear gain, not only to the school, which will 
thus turn all its best resources to account, but also to the 
assistant himself, whose interest in the prosperity of the 
school as a whole will thus be much augmented. 

So we may conclude from these considerations that on 
the whole the class-master plan should prevail in the 
lower classes, and the plan of employing specialists in the 
higher, but that the evils of too exclusive a dependence 



The Teacher and His Assistants, 43 

upon either plan should be carefully guarded against 
throughout the school. 

Another form of compromise between the two systems 
succeeds well in some good schools. To each class of from 
30 to 40 pupils two teachers are attached — a senior and 
a junior. The class is divided into two for arithmetic, 
languages, reading, and a good deal of viva-voce question- 
ing, and each teacher is responsible for his own section. 
For all lecture lessons the sections are thrown together 
and the class is one. The most important lectures are 
given by the senior teacher, others by the junior ; but 
both teachers are present at all lectures, and responsible 
for seeing that their respective sections understand and 
profit by them. This plan has the further advantage of 
putting a younger teacher under the supervision and prac- 
tical training of an elder ; and also of relieving the 
younger teacher occasionally for his own studies or for 
higher lectures. 

But though it is well to confide responsibility to assist- 
ants, it is essential to watch its exercise care- jjgsponsi- 
fully. The principal teacher should hold fre- Jj^i^^g^^fo^ 
quent periodical examinations to see what Assistants, 
progress is being made, should himself stand by and listen 
to the teaching, should make himself thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the methods employed by his assistant, and 
with the sort of influence he exerts. I once knew a large 
private school in which this was done by the cunning de- 
vice of letting a small pane of glass into the wall of each 
class-room ; and the- principal prided himself on being 
able to pervade the whole establishment at all times, and 
peep in when it was least suspected. But this is not what 
I recommend. It is not espionage, for this always de- 
stroys the self-respect of those who are subject to it. xsTor 



44 Lectures on Teaching, 

is it the half-apologetic way which some head-masters 
have of coming into the class of an assistant with some 
pretext^ as if they felt they were intruding. It is the 
frank recognition of such oversight as one of the condi- 
tions nnder which the work is to be done, and under 

which alone responsibility can be properly 
yet concen- ^ . \ ^ "^ i i j 

tratedinthe concentrated m the hands of the principaL 

It is indispensable that there should be unity 
in a school, that the plans and methods in use in the 
various classes should harmonize and be mutually help- 
ful. And to this end the occasional presence of the prin- 
cipal in the lower classes should be part of the recognized 
order of the school. He will not interrupt or criticise of 
course in the presence of the scholars. He will in their 
eyes rather appear as in friendly co-operation with the 
assistant than as a critic. But he will criticise neverthe- 
less. He will carefully note mistakes, negligences, and 
ignorances ; and make them the subject of private counsel 
to the assistants afterwards. 

In many large schools, it is the custom to have every 
School week a short conference among the teachers, 

Cotmciis. jj^ which they and the head-master compare 
notes and consult together about the work and about the 
pupils. Whether the number be small or great, some such 
comparison of experience is absolutely necessary if the 
school is to be at unity with itself, and if its parts are to 
fit together. I once visited an Endowed Grammar School, 
in which the head-master and the usher, both clergymen, 
both on the Foundation, both separately appointed, car- 
ried on their duties in separate rooms. They had not 
spoken to each other for fifteen years. The head-master 
explained to me that the low state of his own department 
was attributable to the worthless character of the prepara- 



The Teacher and His Assistants, 45 

tion obtained in the usher's class ; and the ushe-r, with 
equal frankness, told me that it was of no use to take any 
pains with boys who were to come under so foolish a 
regime as that of the Upper Department. These cases 
it may be hoped are rare, but instances of practical isola- 
tion, and want of harmony in the w^ork of classes, are not 
rare, and I hold it to be indispensable that the principal 
of a school should know everything that is going on in it ; 
and should habitually test and observe the work of his 
subordinates, not because he suspects them, but ])ecause 
thorough and intelligent co-operation towards a common 
end is impossible without it. 

No general rule can be laid down about the age of 
assistants ; the whole question is a personal youthful 
one, to be settled by the individual character- assistants. 
istics of the people within your reach, and not by any fixed 
rules. But I may confess to a strong sense of the services 
which may often be rendered by young teachers and assist- 
ants. Much experience in elementary schools of the work- 
ing of the pupil-teacher system has not led me, as it 
appears to have led many others, to distrust that system, 
and to wish to see it universally superseded by an or- 
ganization dependent on adult teachers alone. You know 
that by the regulations of the Council Office, one grown- 
up assistant master or mistress is allowed to count as two 
pupil-teachers in assessing the sufficiency of the staff. 
They are about equal to one such assistant in point of cost, 
but I have come to the conclusion that in a great many 
cases the two pupil-teachers do more work than one 
assistant. And I have no doubt that in secondary schools 
the system of student-teachers might often be adopted 
with much advantage, and that you may get very valuable 
work out of young people of seventeen or eighteen who 



46 Lectures on Teaching, 

are drawn to the profession by choice and aptitude and 
who wish to become trained for it. What they lack in 
maturity and experience tliey often make up in enthu- 
siasm^ in freshness of mind, and in tractability. You can 
easily direct them, and mould their work so as to fit your 
own plans. Only it is worth while to bear in mind two 
or three conditions. They should not at first be put to 
the care of the youngest children. It is a very common 
fault to suppose that your rawest and least-trained teacher 
should be put to your lowest class, whereas it is in the 
lowest class that the highest professional skill is often 
wanted. To awaken the interest and intelligence of very 
young children is often a much harder task than to direct 
the work of elders. The easiest part of the work of a 
school is the supervision of the more mechanical lessons, 
such as reading and writing, or the correction of sums and 
of home exercises in the middle classes of a school, where 
scholars may be presumed to have already been drilled 
into good habits of work. And this therefore is the de- 
partment of duty which should first be confided to a young 
teacher. The function which is known in the French 
schools as that of repetiteur, who has charge of the minor 
and more mechanical parts of the teaching, is the proper 
function of such a teacher, not the sole charge of any one 
department of a school. Then by degrees he may be called 
upon to give a lesson perhaps on some rule of arithmetic 
in the presence of a class, and afterwards to teach in suc- 
cession other subjects properly graduated in difficulty. 
It is a mistake to exact so much as is often demanded 
from young teachers. While in the stage of probation 
or partial studentship they should not give more than 
half the day to teaching, and reserve the rest for their 
own studies, If we expect a young assistant to spend the 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 47 

whole of the ordinary school-hours in charge of young 
children^ and to pursue his own studies when school is 
over, we expect what is unreasonable, and we go far to 
disgust him and make him feel the task to-be drudgery. 
On the other hand, an alternation of teaching and learn- 
ing, of obeying and governing, is very pleasant to an active 
mind ; and I think by trying the experiment of what 
may be called the '^ half-time system " the principal of 
a school may often get better, fresher work — work which 
he can more completely control and bring into harmony 
with his own views and plans — out of student-teachers 
than out of adult ushers of the ordinary type. 

There is great advantage, whenever possible, in secur- 
ing assistants of your own training, those gtudent- 
whom you have manufactured on the prem- teachers^ 
ises, so to speak. And the system of student-teachers 
lends itself well to the adoption of this course. But we 
must not overlook the demerits and dangers of this sys- 
tem on the other hand. A youth selected from among 
your most promising pupils, and trained under your own 
eye with a view to taking office as an assistant, may in- 
deed be expected to be familiar with your own methods 
and in sympath}^ with your aims. But it is essential that 
in the interval between the time of quasi-apprenticeship 
and that in which he takes permanent office as assistant 
he should go out either to the University or to some other 
school for that important part of his education which you 
cannot give him. In the elementary schools young peo- 
ple are chosen early as pupil-teachers, go out at eighteen 
for two years to a training college, and return to an ele- 
mentary school as assistants before they are qualified to 
take the sole charge of schools. In theory this is un- 
exceptionable. And if at the training colleges they were 



48 Lectures on Teaching. 

enabled to obtain a broader view of their profession and 
of life, little more could be desired. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, at the Normal College they are associated only with 
others who have had precisely the same training, who 
come from the same social class, and have been subject 
to the same early disadvantages. They are therefore from 
the beginning to the end of their career always moving 
in the same rut, always bounded by the traditions and the 
experience of the elementary school, and they know too 
little of the outer world, or of what in other professions 
passes for a liberal education. Hence the narrower views 
and the more obvious faults which often characterize the 
elementary teacher. For a successful teacher of a higher 
school we may indeed desire in some cases the early train- 
ing analogous to pupil-teachership ; and some special 
preparation, either as assistant or otherwise, in the duties 
of a schoolmaster. But it is important that a substantial 
part of his training, at any rate, should be obtained in 
other places than the school in which he intends ulti- 
mately to teach ; and among persons who are not intend- 
ing to follow the same profession as himself. 

And for the teacher and for all his assistants, the one 
The teacher's ^^^^^^^ needful is a high aim, and a strong 
aims. faith in the infinite possibilities which lie 

hidden in the nature of a young child. One hears much 
rhetoric and nonsense on this subject. The schoolmas- 
ter is often addressed by enthusiasts as if he were more 
important to the body politic than soldier and statesman, 
poet and student all put together ; and a modest man 
rebels, and rightly rebels, against this exaggeration, and 
is fain to take refuge in a mean view of his office. But 
after all, we must never forget that those who magnify 
your office in never so bad taste are substantially right. 



The Teacher and His Assistants. 



49 



And it is only an elevated ideal of your profession which 
will ever enable you to con*;end against its inevitable dis- 
couragements — the weary repetitions, the dulness of some, 
the wilfulness of others, the low aims of many parents, 
the exactions of governors and of public bodies, the un- 
generous criticism, the false standards of estimation which 
may be applied to your w^ork. What is to sustain you in 
these circumstances, in places remote from friends, or in 
the midst of uncongenial surroundings ? Nothing, ex- 
cept the faith which removes mountains, the strong con- 
viction that your work, after all, if honestly and skilfully 
done, is some of the most fruitful and precious work in 
the world. The greatest of all teachers, in describing his 
own mission, once said, ^^ I am come that they might have 
life, and that they might have it more abundantly/' And 
may we not without irreverence say that this is, in a 
humble and far-off way, the aim of every true teacher in 
the world ? He wants to help his pupil to live a fuller, 
a richer, a more interesting and a more useful life.^ He 
wants so to train the scholar that no one of his intel- 
lectual or moral resources shall be wasted. He looks on 
the complex organization of a young child, and he seeks 
to bring all his faculties, not merely his memory and his 
capacity for obedience, but also his intelligence, his ac- 
quisitiveness, his imagination, his taste, his love of action, 
liis love of truth, into the fullest vitality ; 

"That mind and soul according well 
May make one music." 

^ " Qu'on destine mon eleve k I'epee, h I'eglise, au barreau que 
li'importe ! avant la vocation des parents, la nature I'appelle a 
la vie humaine. Vivre est le metier que je lui veux apprendre." — ■ 
RoussEAx:. 



so Lectures on Teaching, 

No meaner ideal than this ought to satisfy even the 
humblest who enters the teacher^s profession. 

From considerations so high and far-reaching does it 
seem to you a rather steep descent to come down to the 
details of school organization^ to books and methods^ to 
maps and time-tables ? I hope not^ for it is only in the 
light of large principles that little things can be seen in 
their true significance ; and a great aim is often the stimu- 
lus to exertions which were otherwise petty and weari- 
some. 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 5 1 



IL THE SCHOOL: ITS AIMS AND 
OEGANIZATION. 

We are to consider now the nature and functions of a 
School generally. The Art of Teaching, or xne business 
Didactics as we may for convenience call it, of a school. 
falls under two heads, general and special. And before 
seeking to investigate the several subjects usually included 
in a school course, one by one, and the methods appro- 
priate to each, it seem_s right to take a vue d'ensemhle of 
the whole work of a School, and to ask ourselves what it 
ought to aim at, and what it cannot do. We shall not 
gain much from any preliminary speculation as to what 
Education is. Nothing is more easy than to define it as 
the awakening and training of faculty, the co-ordinate 
development of all the powers both passive and active of 
the human soul, the complete preparation for the busi- 
ness of life. In the view of many who have written on 
this subject there is no one element of perfectibility in 
the human character, no one attribute, physical, intel- 
lectual, or spiritual, which it is not the duty of a teacher 
to have in mind, and which does not form part of the 
business of education. We may leave for the present all 
such speculations. They are unquestionably true ; be- 
cause all the experience of life is a training, and men are 
educated from infancy to the grave by all the sights and 
sounds, the joys and sorrows which they encounter, by 
the character and behavior of their friends, the nature of 
their surroundings, and by the books they read. But we 
have to ask which and how many of these formative in- 



52 Lectures on Teaching, 

fluences are within the control of professional teachers. 
The home and the family influence do mnch^ and these 
have to be presupposed. The out-door life^ and the con- 
tact with its facts and experience, will do still more ; and 

T^ 1- -Ar ^f this also must be taken into account. The 
Tlie limits 01 

its work. school comes in between these, and seeks to 
control some of the forces which act on the young life 
from 7 years old to 15 or 18'; and for a very limited num- 
ber of the hours of each day. It is for a school to sup- 
plement other means of training, not to supersede them ; 
to deal with a part and not with the whole even of youth- 
ful life. It can never safely seek to relieve parents of 
their own special moral responsibilities ; or to find for 
the child fit surroundings in the home or in the world. 
The teacher may properly set before himself the ideal 
perfection of a life. He will do well to study Herbert 
Spencer's description of the purpose of Education as a 
means of forming the parent, the worker, the thinker, 
the subject, and the citizen. But the practical question 
for him is what portion of the vast and intricate work 
of attaining such perfection is to be done in a school, and 
under the special limitations and conditions to which a 
professional teacher is subject. After all, he is not and 
cannot be to his pupil in the place of the parent, the em- 
ployer, the priest, the civil ruler, or the writer of books, 
and all these have in their own way educative functions 
not inferior to his. It is well also to remember that some 
of the most jorecious teaching of life come to us obiter, 
and without special provision or arrangement, while other 
knowledge can hardly come to us at all except we get it 
at school. "We cannot therefore measure the claim of a 
given kind of knowledge to become a part of a school 
course, by considering its worth per se, We must also 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 53 

consider whether it is a kind of knowledge which is capable 
of being formulated into lessons and imparted by a teacher. 
For otherwise, however valuable it may be^, it is for the 
purpose now in view no concern of ours. 

Now a school can operate on the education of a scholar 
in two ways : (1) by its discipline and indi- its true func- 
rect training, and (2) by positive instruction. ^^°^^- 
Of discipline in so far as it is moral and affects the growth 
of character, we have to speak hereafter. But of instruc- 
tion, and the special intellectual and practical discipline 
which may be got by means of definite lessons, we may 
usefully take a brief preliminary view now. 

I suppose that if we seek to classify the objects of in- 
struction Qelir-stoff) , so far as they lie within the purview 
of a school-teacher, they are these : 

(1) The attainment of certain manual and mechanical 
arts, e.g. those of reading, writing, drawing, 

and music. With these you try to train the mentsof in- 
senses, and to develop a certain handiness and 
readiness in the use of physical powers, and in the solution 
of some of the practical problems of life. 

(2) The impartation of certain useful facts — of the 
kind of information which is needed in the intercourse of 
life, and of which it is inconvenient, and a little disgrace- 
ful, to be ignorant. Such are the facts of geography, and 
history, and a good deal of miscellaneous information 
about common things, and about the world in which we 
live. It may be safely said that quite apart from all con- 
sideration of the intellectual processes by which knowl- 
edge of these facts finds entrance into the mind, and of 
the way in which it is systematized or made to serve an 
intellectual purpose, such facts are in themselves useful, 
and ought to be taught. 



54 Lectures on Teaching. 

(3) Language^ including tlie vocabulary^ grammar and 
literature of our own and other tongues ; and all exer- 
cises in the meaning, history and right use of words. 

(4) Pure Science, including Arithmetic, Mathematics 
and other studies of a deductive character, specially in- 
tended to cultivate the logical faculty. 

(5) Applied Science, including Natural History, Phy- 
sics, Chemistry, and the Inductive Sciences generally. 

Now under these five heads may be included nearly all 
the secular teachina^ of a school ; and I think 

Their rela- 

tive import- we may roughly say that, if you take the whole 
period of a child's school life, supposing it to 
be prolonged to the age of 18, the time would not be ill- 
divided if about one-fifth of it were given to each. All 
five are indispensable. But the proportions of time which 
you give to them respectively will vary much according 
to the stage of his career which the child has reached. 
At first, the first, second and third will occupy the whole 
time. As the arts of Eeading and Writing are acquired, 
i.e. after the age of 8 or 9, practice in them will become 
less and less important ; and in a year or two later, ex- 
ercises in what may be called Art will only be interspersed 
among the lessons of the school as reliefs from intellectual 
labor. Thus more time will become available for the 
subjects of the second, third, fourth and fifth groups. 
And of these it should always be remembered, that the 
second is of the smallest value educationally, and that in 
just the proportion in which you deal wisely and suc- 
cessfully with the other branches, the acquisition of in- 
formation about history, geography and common things 
may be safely left to the private reading, and intelligent 
observation, for which your purely disciplinal studies will 
have created an appetite. Moreover these classes of 



The School : Its Aims and Organi:{^atton. 55 

knowledge are not quite so sharply divided in fact as they 
seem to be in a theoretical scheme. Much depends on 
the mode of their treatment. For instance, much of the 
work done under the name of arithmetic is often taught 
more in the nature of a knack, or mechanical art, than as 
a mental discipline. Grammar too, considered as the art 
of correct speaking, is matter of imitation rather than 
knowledge. And Physical Geography may easily, if well 
taught, become lifted to the rank of a science, and fall 
rmder the fifth rather than the third head. On the whole, 
the staple of school discipline and instruction will be found 
in the third, fourth and fifth groups, and you cannot go 
far wrong in alloting the best of the time, in the case of 
older pupils, in about equal proportions to these three de- 
partments of intellectual effort. We shall have to con- 
sider more fully hereafter the reasons which justify the 
teaching of each of these subjects. At present, it may suffice 
to say that you teach language in order to enlarge a learner^s 
vocabulary, to give him precision in the use of words, 
and a greater command over the resources of speech con- 
sidered as an instrument of thought. And an ancient 
language which is fully inflected, a modern language which 
we learn for purposes of conversation mainly, and our 
own vernacular speech, all in their several ways conduce 
to the same end, though each has processes peculiar to 
itself. And we teach besides arithmetic some branch of 
mathematical or deductive science, because this furnishes 
the best training in practical logic, in the art of deducing 
right inferences from general or admitted truths. And 
as to the sciences which are not to be investigated 
deductively, but depend on experience, observation, and a 
generalization from a multitude of phenomena, we teach 
them not only because they make the student acquainted 



56 Lectures on Teaching. 

with the beauty and the order of the physical world, but 
because the mode of attaining truth in these matters cor- 
responds more nearly than any other to the mode by 
which right general opinions are formed about all the 
principal subjects which for the purposes of practical life 
it behooves us to know. 

You can hardly conceive a completely educated man 
Their CO- whose faculties have not been trained in each 
ordination. ^f ^hese ways. But while this threefold di- 
vision of studies may always be held in view, it does not 
follow that every' one of them should be pursued uni- 
formly and co-ordinately all through a scholar's course. 
When elements have been learned and the scholar has 
got to the age of 13 or 14, you will do well often in a 
given term or half-year to concentrate special attention 
on two or three subjects, and for a while to do little more 
with some others than take measures for keeping up what 
has already been gained. It is unsafe to specialize too 
soon, till a good general foundation has been laid for ac- 
quirement in all departments ; but when this founda- 
tion has been secured, it is a great part of education, 
especially in the higher classes, to show what may be done 
now and then by a resolute and steady devotion to a par- 
ticular department of work. It is only by doing so occa- 
sionally, and, in doing this, by sacrificing for a time the 
theory of proportion which ought always to prevail in 
your scheme of instruction considered as a wdiole, that 
you will give to your elder pupils a due sense of their 
own power, and prepare them for that duty which is so 
often needed in after-life — the duty of bringing the whole 
faculty, and effort and enthusiasm, to bear on one subject 
at a time. Do not be afraid therefore of giving an extra 
proportion of time to Latin or to Literature, or to Nat- 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 5 7 

ural Science, when yon find the pupils have just canght 

the spirit of the work and are prepared to do it unusually 

well. For though relatively to the particular month or 

term the distribution of time may seem inequitable, it is 

not so relatively to the whole period of the school life. 

We have, in fact, to keep in view the general principle 

that every school ouo^ht to provide in its own 

-, "^ . , , . 1 J . . . THe three 

way and measure, instruction and trainino^ 01 kinds of 

"^ . ° Schools. 

several different kinds — the practical arts, so 
that the pupil learns to do something, as read, write or 
draw ; the real or specific teaching, so that the pupil is 
made to Imoiv something of the facts and phenomena 
round him ; the disciplinal or intellectual exercise, 
whereby he is helped to think and observe and reason ; 
and the moral training, whereby he is made to feel rightly, 
to be affected by a right ambition, and by a sense of duty. 
But in applying this general view to different schools we 
must make great modifications. Whether a school is in- 
tended for girls or for boys, for young children or elder, 
for boarders or for day scholars, must be first considered 
before we determine its curriculum. And after all, the 
most important consideration which will differentiate the 
character of various schools, is the length of time which 
pupils are likely to spend in them. Roughly we may say 
that a Primary School is one the majority of whose 
scholars leave at the age of 14 ; a Secondary School, one 
in which they remain till 16 ; and a High School, one 
which may 'hope to retain them till 18 or 19, and to send 
them direct to the l^^iiversities. The problem may be 
further modified by special professional aims and by the 
necessary differences in the training of boys and girls, es- 
pecially in relation to the side of art culture ; but mainly 
we may keep these three divisions in view. 



58 Lectures on Teaching. 

^N'ow the work of a Primary School begins earlier^ and is 
much more usually founded on infant-school 
discipline than the work of either of the other primary 
two. From 5 years old to 1, the playful, kindly ^*^^°°^- 
discipline of the Kindergarten may be made to alternate 
with short lessons on reading, writing, drawing and count- 
ing, and with manual and singing exercises. And during 
the age from 7 to 14 it is not too much to expect that the 
child of the poor man who is to earn his living after that 
age shall learn to read with intelligence, to write and ex- 
press himself well, to know something of the structure of 
his own language, and to understand the meanings of 
w^ords. The purely logical part of his training will be 
gained by instruction in the principles and the practice of 
arithmetic, and the elements of geometry ; his knowledge 
of facts will be mainly that of geography and of his- 
tory; the scientific side of his training will be obtained 
through the elementary study of mechanics or chemistry, 
or physiology, Erdlmnde or Naturkunde, and the aesthetic 
side by vocal music and drawing, and the learning of 
poetry. And if to this can be added sufficient instruction in 
the elements of any foreign grammar, say French, to enable 
the pupil to pursue the study of another language than his 
own, by his own efforts after leaving school, the primary 
school may be considered to have done, its work, and to 
have given him, relatively to the limited time in which 
he has been under instruction, a complete, coherent, and 
self-consistent course. 

The curriculum of the Secondary School, which ex 
Jiypotliesi is to be carried on at least to the age 
of 16, should from the first aim at all that is secondary 
attained in the primary, with some additions. 
It may reasonably include the elements of two languages 



The School : Its Aims and Organiiation. 59 

other than the pupil's own, of which it is expedient that 
one should be Latin and the other French or German. 
It should on the side of pure science be carried to alge- 
bra and geometry; and in the department of applied 
science should include at least one such subject as chem- 
istry, physics or astronomy rather fully treated. On the 
side of the humanities it should recognize the study of a 
few literary masterpieces, and some knowledge of the his- 
tory of thought as well as of events. But it should not, 
in my opinion, attempt to include Greek, nor any exercise 
in Latin versification or composition; simply because it 
is not possible to carry discipline of this kind far enough 
within the limits of age to achieve any real intellectual 
result. 

The Public School of the highest grade necessarily and 
rightly adjusts its course to the requirements 3^ ^j^^ ^igh 
of the University, for which as a rule its pupils School 
are destined. It keeps in view the same broad distinctions, 
and the same general scheme of the co-ordination of 
studies; but it may from the first lay wider and deeper 
foundations; it may proceed more slowly, and may fitly 
give heed to niceties of scholarship which would be un- 
suitable in a shorter course. The scheme put forth by the 
Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board for the final examina- 
tion in schools, which is to be regarded either as a tetvuinus 
ad quern relatively to the public-school course, or a terminus 
a quo relatively to the University, and is to serve either for 
a leaving certificate or for matriculation, arranges studies 
in four groups in this wise : 

I. (1) Latin, (2) Greek, (3) French and German; 
II. (1) Scripture knowledge, (2) English, (3) History; 

III. (1) Mathematics (elementary), (2) Mathematics 
(additional) ; 



6o Lectures on Teaching, 

IV. (1) ISTatural Philosophy, (2) Heat and Chemistry, 

(3) Botany, (4) Physical Geography and 

elementary Geology; 

and requires candidates to satisfy the examiners in at least 

four subjects taken from not less than three different 

groups. 

Having determined the course of instruction by con- 
sidering the age to which it is likely to be 
rounded^and prolonged, we have to secure that within this 
comp e e. probable limit there shall be unity of purpose, 
and a distinct recognition of the claims of each of the four 
or five principal means of training. The course should be 
rounded and complete as far as it goes, on the supposition 
that, except in the case of schools which are preparing for 
the University, there is little or no chance that the time of 
formal school instruction will be prolonged. It is by los- 
ing sight of this, that we often commit the grave mistake 
of conducting the school education of a boy on too pre- 
tentious a plan, and on the assumption that he is to make 
a long stay at school. And the incomplete frustum of a 
higher course is not of the same value as the whole of a 
scheme of instruction which from the first has a less am- 
bitious aim. The nature and extent of a foundation must 
be determined by the character of the superstructure you 
propose to build on it. The course of instruction should 
be begun with a reasonable prospect of continuing it. 
Otherwise it may simply come to nothing, and represent 
a weary waste of time. 

And thus, we are to have in view, for schools of all kinds. 
And each in ^^ education which may well deserve to be 
"liberal" called " libera V because it seeks to train the 
course. man, and not merely the good tradesman or 

doctor or mechanic. What we may call the " real '^ ele- 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 6i 

ments of a scliool course, the acquisition of power to read 
and write and do certain things, and the knowledge of 
useful facts, will form the largest proportion of the work 
of the primary school; while the formative elements — 
those which seek to give general power and capacity, — 
language, logic and science, will be less prominent, simply 
for the reason that time is limited. But these higher ele- 
ments should not be absent even from a course of instruc- 
tion which ended at 10 or 11. And the reason why a 
High or Public School course or a University course better 
deserves to be called a course of liberal education than the 
other, is not because it neglects the "real" elements of 
manual arts and matters of fact, but simply because a 
larger proportion of its work is essentially formative and 
disciplinal; and because every year enables the student to 
give relatively more attention to those studies, by which 
taste and power and thoughtfulness are increased. From 
this point of view, it will be seen how unsatisfactory are 
such designations as " Classical " school, Realschule, or 
" Science " school, which imply that all the intellectual 
training is to be of one kind, or worse than all " Com- 
mercial " school, which implies that there is to be no in- 
tellectual training at all, but that the whole course shall 
be consciously directed rather to the means of getting a liv- 
ing, than to the claims of life itself. 

And if this be the true principle to be kept in view in 
the gradation of schools, it follows that, except 
within certain limits, we must not regard the dationof 
Primary as a preparatory school for the Secon- 
dary, or the Secondary for the High School. We need, no 
doubt, to construct the ladder of which we have so often 
heard, from the lower to the highest grades of public in- 
structiori. But it is a grave mistake to suppose that the 



62 Lectures on Teaching. 

highest step in a lower school corresponds with the lower 
one in the secondary. Or to change the figure, the three 
courses of instruction — primary, secondary and higher — 
may be compared to three pyramids, of different sizes, 
though all in their way symmetrical and perfect. But you 
cannot take the apex of the larger pyramid and set it on 
the top of a smaller. You may indeed fit on, with a certain 
practical convenience, the tdp of the higher scheme of edu- 
cation to the truncated scheme of the lower, provided you 
go low enough. If by means of scholarships or otherwise, 
we desire to take a promising pupil out of the elementary 
into the secondary school, it is not expedient to keep him 
in the first till 14 when the course is ended, and then 
transfer him for the last two years of his school life into a 
school of higher pretensions. He should be discovered 
earlier, say at 11, and placed in the higher school for a 
sufficiently long period to gain the full advantage of its 
extended course. And in like manner, if a scholar is to be 
helped from a secondary school into one which prepares 
for the Universities, he should not remain to complete the 
school course, but should be captured, and transferred at 
14 or 15 at the latest. Otherwise it will be found that he 
has something to unlearn, that the continuity of his school 
life is broken, that some of the books and methods will be 
new to him, and that the conditions will not be favorable 
The " finisii- ^^ ^^^ learning all which the more advanced 
ing" School, gchool Can teach. This principle, if once ac- 
cepted, will it is clear prove fatal to the very prevalent 
notion that the higher or more expensive school may be 
regarded as a sort of. finishing school for pupils from the 
lower. There is still a theory, current especially among 
parents in regard to girls, that it is worth while to take a 
pupil from one school, and send her for the last year to 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 6t, 

some expensive establishment to '^ finish." I know few 
more pestilent heresies than this — the notion that a little 
top-dressing of accomplishments is the proper end of a 
school course. There is a great break in the unity and 
sequence of the school career ; and the new books and new 
aims come much too late to be of any real service^ and indeed 
serve only to unsettle the pupil. When schools are rightly 
graded each will have its own complete and characteristic 
course; and for this reason^ it is only within certain limits, 
that is to say, about two years before its natural completion, 
that any one of these courses can be rightly regarded as 
preparatory to the other.* 

In fashioning schemes of instruction, it is well to make 
up our minds as to the relative advantages of 
day schools and boarding schools. In this part tSding 
of our island, a strong preference has long ^^^°°^^- 
been felt for boarding schools ; and it is believed that a 
more complete as well as a more guarded course of educa- 
tion is attainable in them than in day schools. In Scotland 
and in most European countries the opposite feeling has 
prevailed; and wherever good day schools are within reach 
parents prefer to use them, and to look after the moral 

* The desire of the Schools Inquiry Commission was to make 
three grades of Schools above the primary: the Third grade for 
scholars who would leave at 15, in which the fees should be i4 or 
£5 a year; the Second grade to take boys to 16 or 17, and to 
charge fees of £S or ilO; and the First grade to retain scholars 
till at the age of 18 or 19 they should be able to proceed to the 
University; and in such schools the fees might be fixed from 
il5 to £20 a year for tuition only. This theory has proved to be 
unworkable, (1) because, in fact, it separates three classes rather 
too rigidly, when two would have sufficed; and (2) because of the 
unfortunate use of the word " grade," which is popularly taken to 
connote social rather than educational rank, 



64 Lectures on Teaching. 

discipline of t'lieir children at home. I believe that this 
view is becoming more prevalent among ns, and that the 
establishment of large public day schools in towns is doing 
much to reconcile parents^ especially in regard to girls^ to 
a method of training which a few years ago was generally 
regarded by the middle and upper classes as inadequate 
and just a little lowering from the social point of view. 
The discipline of an orderly and intelligent home, and the 
intercourse with brothers and sisters, is itself an important, 
part of education. But this cannot be attained, when 
three-fourths of the year are spent in an artificial comi- 
munity, which is very unlike a home, in which one's com- 
panions are all of' one sex and nearly of the same age, and 
in which the child is placed under the discipline of strang- 
ers who have no other than a professional interest in 
his progress. If we consider the matter well, 
t,e?piac?of there is a sense in which the custom of relying 
'^^^^' on the boarding school implies the degradation 

of the home. It attaches the idea of duty, order and sys- 
tematic work exclusively to the school ; and of leisure, 
license and habitual indulgence to the home. Now the 
highest conception of the life of youth regards both school 
and home as places of systematic discipline, and of orderly 
and happy work. It is after all in the home that much 
of the serious work of men, and nearly all the serious work 
of women, has ultimately to be done; and the sooner this 
fact is made evident to the young scholar the better. No 
parent should willingly consent to part for a large part 
of the year with the whole moral supervision of his child. 
That so many parents do thus consent may be attributed 
partly to the conviction of some, that they are unable 
owing to other occupations or to personal inaptitude to 
do the work properly; and partly to the love of social ex- 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 65 

clusiveness, which is a prominent characteristic and not 
the noblest characteristic of people in the middle and 
upper ranks. We all know that a day school is often spoken 
of as an inferior institution, one in which there will be 
mixture of classes, an object of special dread to the vulgar 
rich. With a truer sense of responsibility on the part of 
parents and truer notions as to the functions of a school, 
this difficulty is likely to become less seriously felt. The 
association of scholars from different ranks of life in classes 
and lessons, involves no real danger to the manners and 
habits of a child. On the contrary such association is well 
calculated to break down foolish prejudice, to furnish the 
best kind of intellectual stimulus, and to show the scholar 
his true place in the w^orld in which he has to play his part. 
This principle is already widely recognized in regard to 
boys; but it is, for obvious reasons, not so readily admitted 
in its relation to girls, although it is not less true and 
sound in their case. Ere long, I hope it will be admitted 
even by the most refined of parents that, with reasonable 
care as to the associations which their daughters form out 
of school, they may not only without risk, but with great 
advantage, permit them to share all the advantages of good 
public day schools; and need feel no greater misgiving as 
to the results of association for school purposes than they 
do in respect to the meeting together on Sundays in the 
same place for public worship. 

In the boarding school, however, habits and personal 
associations are necessarily formed. And since, The board- 
partly from necessity and partly from the pref- i^g-sciiooi. 
erence of parents, boarding schools will always exist, it is 
well to bear in mind that the reasons which render them 
desirable, and which should control their organization, 
differ much in the case of boys and of girls. The great 



66 Lectures on Teaching, 

public school has much to teach besides what is learned 
in the form of lessons^ much which could not be learned 
by boys at home. It is a moral gymnasium, an arena for 
contest, a republican community in which personal rights 
have both to be maintained for one's self and respected in 
others; it should be a microcosm; a training ground for 
the business and the struggle of life, and for the duties of 
a world in which men have to work with men and to con- 
tend with men. But a big conventual boarding school for 
girls is unlike any world which they are ever likely to 
enter. It has no lesson to teach and no discipline to fur- 
nish which bears at all on the future claims of society and 
of home. Hence, while the ideal boarding school for boys 
may be large and stately, with its strong sense of corporate 
unity, its traditions, its contests, its publicity, its represen- 
tation on a small scale of municipal and political life; the 
ideal boarding school for girls is an institution large 
enough indeed as to all its teaching arrangements to ad- 
mit of perfect classification, right division of duty among 
teachers, and abundant intellectual activity ; but organized, 
as to all its domestic arrangements, on the principle of 
small sheltered boarding houses in separate communities 
of not more than 20, each under the care of a mistress who 
shall stand in loco parentis. And in each of such boarding 
houses it is well that care should be taken to gather to- 
gether under the same roof scholars of very different ages, 
in order that relations of helpfulness and protection may 
be established between the elder and the younger, and that 
in this way something analogous to the natural discipline 
of a family may be attained. 

We may not forget too that all large boarding establish- 
ments, Avhen limited to pupils of one particular class, 
clergy-orphan schools, schools for officers' daughters, or- 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 67 

phan schools, and the like, have a very narrow influence 
on the formation of character and are essen- 
tially wrong in principle. Any disadvantages boarding- 
which belong to the children of any one such 
class becomes intensified by the attempt to bring them tip 
together. Experience has shown us that the worst thing to 
do with pauper children is to bring them up in pauper 
schools ; and that the wise course is as soon as possible to 
let their lives be passed in ordinary homes, and in schools 
frequented by children whose parents are not paupers. So 
the happiest thing for the orphan daughter of a clergyman 
is that she should be placed in a school where the children 
do not all come from parsonages, and where some at least 
of her associates are not orphans. 

To what extent are the principles we have laid down 

consistent with a system of bifurcation, or 

-^ ^ Bifurcation. 

■division of the upper part of the school, into 

two branches, according to the special bent or probable 
destiny of the scholars ? On this point there has been 
much discussion. Even in the. greatest and most ancient 
of our schools, it has come to be recognized that the tradi- 
tional classical discipline is not equally suited for all the 
pupils ; that what are called modern subjects — modern 
languages and sciences — have a right to recognition; and 
that for all boys who are not likely to go to the University, 
as well as for all who, when they enter an academic life, 
mean to pay special attention to science, an alternative 
course should be offered; and they should be permitted 
to substitute modern languages for ancient, or chemistry 
and physical science for literature. And hence the estab- 
lishment in so many of the great schools of what are called 
" modern departments," or " modern sides." It is impossi- 
ble to declare that this experiment 'has been wholly sue- 



6S Lectures on Teaching. 

cessful. There is often a complete separation, say at the 
Modernde- ^S^ ^^ ^^y ^^ ^^^^ boys in this department from 
partments. those of the " classical." The " moderns '' are 
sometimes placed under the care of a class of teachers of 
inferior academic rank. It is understood that the work 
is rather easier, and that hoys of inferior abilities gravitate 
to it. So it comes to be regarded as less creditable to be- 
long to it; and those who keep in the ancient traditional 
groove, in which all the former triumphs of the school 
have been won, consider themselves not only intellectually 
but socially superior to those who avail themselves of the 
locus poeniteiitice provided by the modern department. 
What is worse, the masters themselves often encourage this 
feeling, and let it be seen that they think the more hon- 
orable school career is to be found in exclusive devotion 
to classics. We shall never give a fair chance to other 
forms of intellectual discipline while this state of academic 
opinion lasts. We shall, I hope, ere long come to the con- 
clusion that the true way to recognize the claims of what 
are called modern subjects, is not by the erection of sepa- 
rate modern departments, but rathex by taking a wiser and 
more philosophical view of the whole range and purpose of 
school education. It is not good that the boy who is to be 
a classical scholar should grow up ignorant of physical laws. 
Still less is it good that the boy who shows a leaning for 
the natural sciences , should be debarred from the intel- 
lectual culture which literature and language give. And it 
may well be doubted whether it is desirable to recognize 
too early the differences of natural bent, or probable pro- 
fessional career, at all. Up to a certain point, it is good for 
all of us to learn many things for which we have no special 
aptitude. Unless we do this, we do not give our faculties 
a fair chance. We do not know until our minds have been 
directed to particular forms of study, whether they will 



The School : Its Aims and Organi^^ation. 69 

prove to be serviceable to us or not. You and I laiow 
many persons whose intellectual training lias been com- 
pletely one-sided; scholars^, e.g., wlio have never given a 
moment^s study to the sciences of experiment and observa- 
tion in any form. With some of them, the result of this 
is seen in the lofty contempt with which they regard the 
kind of knowledge which they themselves do not possess. 
"With others, the result is seen in a highly exaggerated esti- 
mate of chemistry or civil engineering, and an absurd and 
ultra-modest depreciation of that form of mental culture 
to which they themselves owed so much. Both states of 
mind are mischievous. And they may be guarded against 
by taking care that our school-course gives at least the 
elements of several different kinds of knowledge to every 
learner. There comes a time, no doubt, when it is quite 
clear that we should specialize, but this time does not ar- 
rive early; and until it arrives, it is important that we 
should secure for every scholar a due and harmonious ex- 
ercise of the language faculty, of the logical faculty, of 
the inductive faculty; as well as of the powers of acquisi- 
tion, and of memory. Let arrangements be made by all 
means for dropping certain studies, when experience shall 
have made it clear that they would be unfruitful. Let 
German be the substitute for Greek, or higher proficiency 
in physics be aimed at as an alternative to the closer per- 
ception of classic niceties. But you do not want distinct 
courses of instruction, existing side by side, to provide for 
these objects. And if modern departments are to exist at 
all in our great schools, they can only justify their exist- 
ence by fulfilling these very simple conditions : 

(1) That the student of language shall not neglect 

science, nor the student of science nes^lect Ian- Conditions 

/., ,11... .. T ^ and their 

guage, even after the biiurcatian has begun. success. 

(2) That in each department, the same general curric- 



7o Lectures on Teaching. 

ulum including the humanities as well as science and 
mathematics shall be pursued; the only difierence being 
in the proportion of time devoted to each, and possibly in 
the particular language or science selected, e.g. .German for 
Greek, chemistry for applied mechanics. 

(3) That as far as possible, so much of the instruction as 
is common to the scholars in both departments — and this 
should be by far the larger portion — should be given to 
them in common, and not in separate departments or by 
separate teachers. 

(4) That there shall be no pretext for regarding the 
modern course as intellectually inferior to the other; but 
that both courses should rank as equivalent, exact the same 
amount of effort, and should even from the school-boy's 
point of view be equally honorable. 

Now how far ought this general scheme of division into 

five departments, of which the first two — the 
Girls' schools. 

real — gradually yield the chief importance to 

the other three, the formative or disciplinal, to be modi- 
fied for the sake of girls' schools ? Probably to a very 
small extent indeed. We may indeed postulate one special 
condition, for which we men all have good reason to be 
thankful, that a larger portion of a woman's life than of 
ours is spent in giving pleasure to others;" and that to 
charm and beautify the home is accepted by her as the 
chief — one might almost say the professional — duty which 
she feels to be most appropriate. Hence the greater im- 
portance in her case of some form of artistic training. The 
elements of instrumental music and of drawing should be 
taught to every girl; and these studies should be carried 
far enough to give her faculties for them a fair chance of 
revealing themselves, and ,to discover whether she is likely 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation, 7 1 

to excel. And as soon as it becomes clear^ in respect to 
either^ that she has no special aptitude, and no prospect 
of attaining excellence, the subject should be dropped. 
Nothing adds more to the charm of life than good music, 
but nothing is more melancholy than to reflect upon the 
wasted hours spent by many a girlin the mechanical prac- 
tice of music, from which neither she nor any hearer de- 
rives real enjoyment. But this admission once made, and 
the just claims of art and taste as part of a woman's edu- 
cation duly recognized, there seems no good reason for 
making any substantial difference between the intellectual 
-training of one sex and that of the other. The reasons 
which have been urged for a co-ordinate development of 
faculty apply to the human and not to any specially mas- 
culine needs. 

We are bound to make a practical protest against that 
yiew of a girl's education which prevails so widely among 
ignorant parents. They often care more for the accom- 
plishments by which admiration is to be gained in early 
years, than for those qualities by which it is to be per- 
manently retained, and the work of life is to be done. In 
the long-run, the usefulness and happiness of women and 
their power of making others happy depends, more than 
on anything else, on the number of high and worthy sub- 
jects in which they take an intelligent interest. Some 
day perhaps we may be in a position to map out the whole 
field of knowledge, and to say how much of it is masculine 
r.nd how much of it is feminine. At present the data for 
such a classification are not before us. Experience has not 
yet justified us in saying of any form of culture or useful 
knowledge that it is beyond the capacity of a woman to 
attain it, or that it is unsuited to her intellectual needs. 
Meanwhile the best course of instruction which we can de- 



72 Lectures on Teaching. 

vise ought to be put freely within the reach of men and 
women alike. We may be well content to wait and see what 
comes of it ; for we may be sure that no harm can pos- 
sibly come of it. 

As to the distribution of time, it is impossible to lay 
Distribution ^^^wn any rigid rule, applicable to schools of 
of time. different characters and aims. Specimen time- 

tables might easily be given, but they would probably be 
very misleading. It may be useful, however, to keep in 
view some general directions for the fabrication of your 
own time-table : 

(1) Calculate the total number of hours per week avail- 
able for instruction, and begin by determining what pro- 
po-rtion of these hours should be devoted respectively to 
the several subjects. 

(2) In doing this contrive to alternate the work so that 
no two exercises requiring much mental effort or the same 
kind of effort come together, e.g. let a lesson in translation, 
in history or arithmetic, be followed by one in writing or 
drawing; one in which the judgment or memory is most 
exercised by one in which another set of faculties is called 
into play. It is obvious that the exercises which re- 
quire most thinking should generally come earliest in the 
day. 

(3) Have regard to the character and composition of 
your teaching staff; and to the necessity for continuous 
yet well-varied and not too laborious employment for each 
of them; particularly for those who are specialists, or 
teachers of single subjects. 

(4) As a rule do not let any lesson last longer than 
three-quarters of an hour. It is unreasonable to expect 
continuous and undivided attention for a longer time, and 
with very young children even half an hour is enough. 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 73 

Thus a three hours' school in the morning should be di- 
vided into four parts, and a two hours' attendance in the 
afternoon into three. 

(5) An interval of ten minutes may fitly be provided 
in the middle of each school-time for recreation in play- 
room or ground. So a morning will give three lessons of 
three-quarters of an hour each, one of half an hour, which 
is quite long enough say for a dictation or a writing lesson,, 
and a little break beside. 

(6) Let the plans be so arranged as to provide movement 
and change of position at each pause in the work. One 
lesson a day may very properly be given to the scholars 
standing. 

(7) Let one short period be reserved in every day for the 
criticism of the preparatory or other lessons which have 
been done out of school. We shall see hereafter that some 
forms of home lessons admit of very effective and expe- 
ditious correction in class. 

(8) Eeserve also a short period, for some purpose not 
comprehended in the routine of studies, say the last half- 
hour of the week, for gathering the whole school together, 
addressing them on some topic of general interest, or read- 
ing an extract from some interesting book. 

(9) Do not so fill up your own time, if you are the prin- 
cipal teacher, and have assistants, as to be unable to fulfil 
the duty of general supervision. Provide for your own 
inspection and examination of the work of the several 
classes, at least once in every two weeks, and take care that 
the work of all youthful teachers, and of those who are not 
fully trained, goes on in your sight. 

(10) Punctuality should be the rule~ at the end as well 
as the beginning of a lesson; otherwise you do not keep 
faith with your scholars. The time-table is in the nature 



74 Lectures on Teaching. 

of a contract between yon and them. Do not break it. 
The pnpils are as mnch entitled to their prescribed period 
of leisure, as yon are to your prescribed time of lecturing 
and expounding. 

I cannot tell you how much a school gains by possessing 
a thoroughly well considered time-table, and adhering 
closely to it. In the elementary school, as you know, the 
time-table once sanctioned and approved by the Inspector, 
ancl duly displayed, becomes the law of the school, and 
must not in any way "be departed from. And I feel sure 
that you will gain by putting yourselves under a regime 
just as severe. For the habit of assigning a time for every 
duty, and punctually performing everything in its time, is 
of great value in the formation of character. And every 
good school is something more than a place for the acquire- 
ment of knowledge. It should serve as a discipline for the 
orderly performance of work all through life ; it should set 
up a high standard of method and punctuality, should 
train to habits of organized and steadfast effort, should 
be " an image of the mighty world." 

In separating a school into classes two conditions have 
ciassifica- ^° ^^ fulfilled — that the scholars shall be near 
tion. enough in ability and knowledge to work well 

together, to help and not hinder one another, and that 
there shall be a sufficient number of scholars in one class 
to secure real emulation and mental stimulus. A large 
school in which the ages range from 10 to 15 may for the 
former purpose have five classes. Indeed, it may be roughly 
said that there should be as many classes as there are years 
in the school-life of the scholars. Otherwise, you will be 
mingling children in the same class whose attainments and 
powers differ so widely that either some of them will be 
held back, or others will be urged to progress too rapidly. 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation, 75 

On the other hand^ it is essential that chisses shonkl be of 
a certain size ; and I believe that every teacher who under- 
stands his business prefers large classes to small ones. 
There are advantages in the fellowship and sympathy which 
are generated by numbers^ in the self-knowledge which the 
presence of others gives to each, and especially in the 
stimulus which a dull or commonplace child receives from 
hearing the answers and witnessing the performances of 
the best in the class. And these advantages cannot be 
gained in a small class. In fact, I believe it is as easy to 
teach 20 together as 10; and that in some respects the 
work is done with more zest and more brightness. So it 
will be seen that the two conditions we have laid down 
cannot both be fulfilled except in schools of a certain. size. 
There is in fact an inevitable waste of resources and of 
teaching power in any school of less than 100 children; 
and a very serious waste in small schools of 20 or 30. In 
all of them you must either sacrifice the uniformity of the 
teaching, or you must, at considerable cost, have a teacher 
for every group of six or seven scholars, and in such classes 
must sacrifice the intellectual life and spirit which num- 
bers alone can give. For the sake of this intellectual life 
I should be prepared to make some sacrifices of other con- 
siderations, and even to incur the risk in small schools 
of keeping back one or two elder scholars, or pushing now 
and then a backward scholar a little farther on than would 
otherwise be desirable. The most joyless and unsatisfac- 
tory of all schools are those in which each child is treated 
individually, is working few or no exercises in common 
with others, and comes up to be questioned or to say a 
lesson alone. 

In examining a scholar on entrance, before the age of 
ten, it is well to determine his position mainly by his read- 



76 Lectures on Teaching. 

ing and by his arithmetic. Above that age, especially in 
a school in which language forms the staple 
fxanSna^- of the higher instruction, an elementary exam- 
*^^^' ination in Latin, in Arithmetic and in Eng- 

lish will suffice to determine his position. These are the 
best rough tests for choosing the class in which he should 
be placed. If you are in doubt, it is safer and better to put 
him low at first rather than too high. It is always easy 
as well as pleasant to promote him afterwards, if you have 
at first underestimated his powers; and it is neither easy 
nor pleasant to degrade him if you begin by making a 
mistake in the other direction. I do not think it desir- 
able to have separate classification for different subjects, 
except for special subjects such as drawing or music, in 
which the individual gifts and tastes of children other- 
wise alike in age and standing necessarily difi^er consider- 
ably. But for all the ordinary subjects of class instruction, 
language, history, reading, writing, and lessons on science, 
it is well to keep the same scholars together. A little 
latitude may perhaps be allowed for scholars in the same 
class who have made different degrees of progress in Arith- 
metic, and it will not always be possible or desirable that 
all the scholars in a class should be working exactly the 
same sums. Yet even here we have to ask ourselves what 
we mean by progress. It does not mean hurrying on to 
an advanced rule, but a fuller mastery over the applica- 
tions of the lower rules. I would therefore resist the very 
natural desire of the more intelligent scholars, who may 
have got on faster, and perhaps finished all the exercises 
in the text-book under a particular rule, to go on to a 
new rule before their fellows. It is much better to let them 
occupy their time either in recapitulation, or in doing ex- 
ercises you have specially selected from a more difficult 



The School : Its Aims and Organisation. 77 

book^ and in dealing with rather more complex exempli- 
fications of the lower rules. When a new rule is taken, 
the whole class should begin it at once; because, as we shall 
hereafter see, the oral exposition of a new rule is an es- 
sential part of class- work; and it is one in which you 
cannot dispense with that kind of intellectual exercise 
which comes from questioning, cross-questioning, and 
mutual help. And if this be true of Arithmetic, then cer- 
tainly it is true of every other subject which is usually 
taught in schools. 

A word or two may be properly added on the subject of 
fees. They will have a necessary tendency to 
increase, as the value of money alters, and the 
public estimation of good teaching rises. Already the 
sums mentioned on p. 63, which were recommended by the 
Schools^ Inquiry Commission in 1867, have often proved 
to be insufficient for the satisfactory conduct even of 
schools provided with good buildings for which no interest 
has to be paid. Much will depend on the size of the 
school — for the cost per head is reduced when num- 
bers are large — and much also upon the character of the 
l^lace and it surroundings, and upon the value, if any, of 
the endowment the school possesses. But whatever the 
fees prescribed, they should be inclusive of all the school 
charges, and of all the subjects taught in it. There is no 
harm in graduating fees by age, or in imposing a heavier 
charge on those who come into the school late. But there 
should be no graduation by subjects — no extras, except 
perhaps for instrumental music, or other special subject 
requiring quasi-private instruction. Nothing is more fatal 
to the right classification of a school, and to its corporate 
unity, than the necessity of appealing to the parent at 
each stage of a pupil's career, to know if this or that par- 



^8 Lectures on Teaching. 

ticular subject can be afforded or sanctioned. A school 
is not a mart in which separate purchases may be made 
for each scholar at discretion of so much French^ or Latin 
or Mathematics^ but an organized community for the pur- 
poses of common instruction^ in which no other distinction 
should be recognized among the scholars than the fitness 
of each to enter a particular class or to commence a new 
study. And of this fitness the principal teacher should be 
the sole judge. There may be in special circumstances 
good reasons fox reducing the fee to the holders of scholar- 
ships or exhibitions; but the fee prescribed by regulation 
for those who have no special privilege should always be 
such as shall honestly avow to the parents the true market 
value of the education imparted^ and as shall place within 
the reach of every scholar who is admitted, without excep- 
tion, the full advantage of all the instruction which the 
school can furnish. 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 79 



III. THE SCHOOL-EOOM AND ITS APPLI- 
ANCES. 

We may fitly devote one of our meetings to the con- 
sideration of the physical conditions under r^^^ physical 
which school work should be carried on^ and successful °^ 
the merely material equipments and appli- teaching:, 
ances which are needed in teaching. Such considerations 
are of great importance. No effective teaching is possi- 
ble when children are in a state of physical discomfort. 
We cannot afford to despise one of the artifices which 
science and experience have adopted^ for making our 
scholars more at ease, and putting them into a more re- 
ceptive attitude for instruction. What then are the most 
favorable external conditions under which the work of a 
school can be carried. on ? 

There is first the necessity for sufficient space. In the 
elementary schools it is an imperative require- 
ment that at least eight square feet of floor ^^"* 
area shall be provided for every child, and this in a room 
ten feet high means a total space of 80 cubic feet. This 
is the minimum ; and in schools provided by the rates it 
has of late been the practice to require a larger space — 
ten superficial feet or 100 cubic feet. But a more liberal 
provision still is needed in good secondary schools. For 
you have not only to provide sitting-room at a desk for 
each scholar, but room for each class to stand up and 
means for combining two or more classes for collective 
lessons. It is obvious that the space-requirement must 



8o Lectures on Teaching. 

be mainly determined By the nature of the organization 
of the school^ whether in separate class-rooms or in one 
large room. As a general rule there is no harm in pro- 
viding an isolated class-room for every class for which you 
are also able to provide a responsible adult teacher who does 
not need constant supervision. And many modern schools 
are constructed on the theory that all the work is to be 
done in class-rooms, and that all the space needed is a 
sufficient number of such rooms to seat all the scholars. 
But there are occasions on which it is desirable that all 
the scholars should assemble together ; for morning or 
evening prayer, for singing, or for collective addresses. 
Without a central hall large enough to contain the whole 
of the scholars, the corporate life of a school cannot be 
properly sustained and many opportunities are lost of 
making the scholars conscious of their relations to each 
other and to the general repute and success of the school. 
And it is manifest that if such a central hall is used for 
these public purposes alone, and not for teaching, much 
space is wasted, and the estimate of area already given 
must be multiplied by two. In some modern schools the 
various class-rooms are arranged in the four sides of a 
quadrangle which is covered in, and which serves the 
double purpose of a central hall and of a common entrance 
to all the rooms. In this way you economize sjDace and 
dispense altogether with the necessity for a corridor. 
Moreover such an arrangement renders the assembling of 
all the scholars from their separate rooms, and the dis- 
missal of all to their work after the roll-call or the prayers 
of the morning, a simpler and easier process. On the 
whole, experience shows that in a well-planned, lofty 
room two or three or even more different classes may 
work apart without any disadvantage ; and this arrange- 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 8i 

meiit is a very convenient one for securing clue supervis- 
ion over younger teachers, and especially for the occasional 
junction of two or three classes for some lecture or special 
exercise which may be given collectively. Of course, if 
you are in circumstances which make you indifferent to 
cost, it is a good thing to have class-room accommoda- 
tion enough for the wliole school, and a central hall for 
no other than quasi-public gatherings. Even then some 
of the adjacent class-rooms should be so divided by mova- 
ble partitions that two of them may be readily thrown 
into one when occasion requires. But when circumstances 
render it important to economize space or money, one 
large room which will hold the entire school for collective 
purposes, and class-rooms enough to hold half the scholars, 
will suffice. This arrangement presupposes that, for or- 
dinary class work, one half of the classes will meet and 
receive their lessons side by side in the principal room. 
Thus, taking 100 as the unit, there should be one room 
of 45 ft. by 20, in which all can sit, but in which half are 
habitually taught ; and two class-rooms, about 15 by 17, 
each sufficiently large to provide accommodation for 25 
scholars. Class-rooms should be adjacent and should have 
glass doors, not necessarily for easier supervision, though 
that is important, but for increase of light. 

As to light, we have to remember that all glare should 
be avoided, and that therefore southern win- 
dows are not the best. It is well to have one 
southern window for cheerfulness, but the main light 
should be the steadier and cooler light from the north. 
I hardly need say that though sunshine may easily be in 
excess in a school-room, you cannot have too much of it 
in a play-ground. The best light for working purposes 
is from the roof; but skylights are often hard to open, 



82 Lectures on Teaching. 

and in snowy weather are apt to become obscured. They 
should not therefore be the only windows. Yon secure a 
better diffusion of light throughout a room and avoid 
shadows by having all windows high up^ the lowest 
part being 6 or 7 ft. from the ground. But this is not, 
owing to the structure of rooms, always possible. 
When windows are low side light is preferable both to 
that from behind, which causes the pupil to sit in his 
own shadow, and to that from the front, which is apt to 
distress his eyes. And of side lights that from the left 
hand is always the best; otherwise the pupiFs writing is 
done at a disadvantage and in the shadow of his own pen. 
In planning desks, you have to consider several re- 
quirements : (1) They should be comfortable, 
with a height of 2 ft. for little children, and 
2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. for older scholars ; the seat in both cases 
being about as high from the ground as the length of the 
leg from the knee to the foot. There should be a back 
rail not more than 10 inches high, and for very young- 
children about 7 inches high, to give support just at that 
portion of the back where it is most needed. Most backs 
to seats and pews are too high. (2) They should be easy 
of access ; for in writing-lessons, half the work of the 
teacher consists in going round the class pointing out the 
errors, correcting and pencilling them ; and this is im- 
possible if the desks are long or too crowded. At least 
1 ft. 8 in. should be allowed for each child. In some of 
the American schools access is facilitated by giving to 
each scholar a separate desk and seat, the latter revolv- 
ing on a pivot, and having its own back like a chair. 
But this is a very expensive arrangement. In the schools 
of the School Board for London, the desks are called 
^^ dual.'^ Each of these measures about 3 ft. 4 in. long. 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 83 

and accommodates two children. They are constructed 
with a hinge, so that the front half can he lifted np when 
standing exercises are given. (3) The seats of scholars 
should he compactly arranged ; so that for teaching the 
whole class may be brought well into one focus, and not 
spread over too wide an area for thorough supervision 
and economy of voice. This requirement appears to con- 
flict in some measure with the first-named conditions. Yet 
it seems so important that, for the sake of it, I should 
be inclined to sacrifice some other advantages. The desks 
should be so arranged that the angle of vision for the 
teacher does not exceed 45°. It is a mistake to have more 
than five desks deep. If there are six the scholars be- 
hind are too far off for effective oversight or perfect hear- 
ing. (4) Desks should be very slightly sloped, nearly flat, 
and about 1 foot wide ; it will suffice if the seats have a 
width of 8 inches. 1 There should be a shelf-space un- 
derneath for books or slates, and when each scholar has 
a fixed place allotted to him, this space may be kept for 
all his own books and belongings. But except for a very 
limited number of the eldest and most trustworthy 
scholars in a High School, it is not well to have lockers ; 
all pigeon-holes and covered spaces which are appro- 
priated to the use of individual scholars should be open 
or easily openable ; there should be no secrets or private 
hoards and the occasional and frequent inspection of them 
is itself a useful discipline in neatness. (5) I would have 
you distrust all contrivances by which desks like Gold- 



^ For fuller details on this subject, and indeed on most of the 
topics treated in this chapter, the reader will do well to consult an 
excellent work, Robson's School Architecture, and also an American 
work by Barnard on the same subject. 



84 Lectures on leaching. 

smith's " bed by night and chest of drawers by day " un- 
dertake to serve two purposes, e.g. to turn over and fur- 
nish a back suited for older people in a lecture-room, or 
to be fixed horizontally two together to make a tea-table. 
All such devices are unsatisfactory and involve a sacrifice 
of complete fitness for school purposes. The desks should 
be so arranged that the teacher from his desk should com- 
mand the whole group. There are two ways of effecting 
this. If his own desk is on the floor, the fourth and fifth, 
rows of desks at the back should be raised by two steps, 
so that each shall be higher than that in front. If, on 
the other hand, all the scholars' desks are on the same 
level floor, he himself should have his desk on a mounted 
estrade or platform. (6) We have to remember also that 
all the work of a scholar has not to be done at a desk. 
For the due maintenance of life and animation in teach- 
ing, it is well, as I have already said, to give some of the 
lessons to scholars in a standing position. The change of 
attitude is a relief, and is conducive to mental activity. 
Do not therefore have so large a j^ortion of your school 
or class-room encumbered with desks as to make this ar- 
rangement impossible. Always have space enough re- 
served to enable you to draw out the class into the form 
of a standing semi-circle. 

The questions of warmth and of ventilation should al- 
ways be considered together. They are rather 
eati ation. complex, owing to the very dift'erent form of 
buildings, the aspect of the rooms, and the relative posi- 
tion of near and surrounding objects. Teachers have few 
opportunities of being consulted by architects about the 
requirements on which they wish to insist, but it is well 
to have a few principles in view, ready for such an oppor- 
tunity when it occurs. We have to remember that each 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 85 

of ITS breathes about 16 times a minute or 960 times an 
hour^ and that every time we do tliis the air in any con- 
fined room is partly vitiated. The indispensable thing is 
that every room should have some means of admitting 
fresh and emitting foul air. There are several ways of 
attaining this. When rooms open out into a corridor, a 
good place for a ventilator is over the door ; when a group 
of gas-burners is in the centre of the room, there should 
be a ventilating shaft above it to carry off the products 
of combustion. In some cases a ventilating opening in 
the wall of the chimney above the fireplace is useful. And 
for the admission of fresh air, a Tobin ventilating shaft 
in the corner of the room, communicating below with the 
outer air and open about 7 feet above the floor, so as to 
introduce a current of air where no draught will be felt 
by the head, is often an eft'ective experiment. But all 
windows should be made to open, both at the top and 
bottom ; and in any interval which occurs in the work of 
the class, they should be opened. A very slight opening 
both at the top and the bottom of a window at the same 
time is often found to be elfectual as a ventilator ; for 
you have here what the engineers call an upward and a 
downward shaft, the colder air coming in at the bottom, 
and passing upwards so as to expel the bad air at the 
upper opening. And if, owing to the defective supply of 
means for attaining this purpose, you have any reason to 
suppose that the air is likely to become bad in a three 
hours^ sitting of the school, it is a good plan to break up 
the class for ten minutes when half the morning's or after- 
noon's work is over, and in this short interval to throw open 
all the windows and introduce a fresh supply, even in the 
coldest weather, of pure air. The little sacrifice of time 
will be more than compensated. 



86 Lectures on Teaching, 

As to warmth, we have to remember that the tempera- 
ture, if work — especially sedentary work — is to 
Warmth. . . _, . / , •; 

be carried on m comfort, should not in any 

school-room be lower than 60°. But it is bad policy to get 
warmth by vitiating the air, e.g. by gas-stoves, "by stoves 
not provided with flues, by steam, or by large heated metal 
surfaces. On the whole, except for very large schools, 
open fires, if judicious arrangements are made to sur- 
round them with proper reflecting surfaces and also to 
diffuse an equable temperature through the room and to 
prevent waste of fuel, are best for the purposes of heat 
and ventilation as well as of cheerfulness. It may be added 
that a gray color is better for the walls than either a more 
pronounced and strong color or simple wdiite. 

Of the teaching appliances in the room, no one is more 

important than the Blackboard. We may not 
Apparatus. 

jDerhaps go so far as the enthusiastic Char- 

bonneau, wdio says '^ Le tableau noir, c'est le vie d'en- 
seignement,^' but we may safely say that no school or class- 
room is complete without one ; that there is no single 
subject of instruction wherein constant recourse should not 
be had to it ; and that it and all its proper appurtenances 
of clialk, sponge, and duster should always be within easy 
reach, that there may be no excuse for dispensing with its 
aid whenever it is wanted. Perhaps there is no one crux 
by which you may detect at once so clearly the difference 
between a skilled and an u.nskilled teacher, as the fre- 
quency and tact wdth which he uses the blackboard. In 
some American schools there is a blackboard all around 
the Toom, 4 or 5 ft. wide ; and the black surface close to 
the teacher's desk extends nearly to the ceiling. This sur- 
face is more often of slate than of wood, and is sometimes 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 87 

of a material known as liquid slating. It is occasionally 
of a green color instead of black, as offering a pleasanter 
surface to the eye ; but diagrams and writing are apt to 
be less clear when any color but black is adopted. 

I will give you from the official regulations of the Bel- 
gian Government the list of objects required 
to be provided in every State school : a state school 

A bust or portrait of the King, some re- 
ligious pictures, a small shelf or case for the teacher^s 
own books of reference, a collection of weights and meas- 
ures, a set of diagrams or pictures for each of the subjects 
taught. 

A map of Europe, a map of Belgium, a globe, a special 
map of the province, and a cadastral plan (ordnance map) 
of the commune in which the school is situated. 

A small collection of objects of natural history, illus- 
trative, as far as possible, of the flora, fauna, and physical 
products of the district. 

A clock ; a thermometer ; and a collection illustrative 
of the principal geometrical forms. 

A frame or board on which to affix all programmes and 
special rules, as well as the permanent time-table of the 
class. 

To this one might add that an easel on which maps 
or diagrams may be displayed is useful, and that all books, 
slates, and other objects in use in the class should Ije kept 
in an easily accessible cupboard in the room itself, not 
only because all these things should be at hand — other- 
wise there is a pretext sometimes for trying to do without 
them — but also because all fetching and carrying from 
store cujDboards at a distance increase the risk of loss and 
destruction. 



SS Lectures on Teaching. 

We are to remember that over and above the conve- 
nience and economy which have to be secured 

nitureim- in reo'ard to all school material, there are im- 
portant as . . 

discipline in portant incidental purposes to be served by- 
care and method in all these material arrange- 
ments. We have to teach respect for public property, care 
in handling things which are not our own or which have 
no visible owner. It is notorious that this is much disre- 
garded in higher schools for boys, and- that the aspect of, 
the desks and school furniture in them is such as would 
be simply, disgraceful in a school for the poor. There 
seems no good reason for this difference. I would there- 
fore never permit the school-room to be used for play, or 
to be open as a common room out of school hours when 
there is no supervision. Eemember too that every time 
you enlist the services of the scholars in some little effort 
to render the school-room± and its surroundings more 
comely and attractive, jou are doing something to en- 
courage the feeling of loyalty and pride in the school, and 
are doing still more to educate them into a joerception of 
beauty, and a desire for refined and tasteful surroundings. 
In schools for the poor, this aim is especially important ; 
but in schools for children of every rank, it must be borne 
in mind that the careful and artistic arrangement of all 
the school material, and of all pictures and illustrations, 
is a silent but very effective lesson in good taste ; and 
will go far to make children love order and neatness. 
Whoever carries into his own home a feeling of discom- 
fort and of aesthetic rebellion against dirt, vulgarity, and 
untidiness, has learned a lesson which is of considerable 
value as a foundation for an orderly life. Old Joseph Lan- 
caster's rule, '^ A place for everything and everything in its 
place,'' is of universal application. 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 89 

The registration of admission and of attendance in ele- 
mentary schools subsidized by government 
grants demands a special and minute care^ 
owing to the fact that a portion of the grant is assessed 
according to the attendance ; some of the payments made 
being dependent on the average attendance of scholars 
and some on the aggregate of attendances made by the 
particular scholars presented for examination. Hence^ for 
the elementary schools the strictest rules are laid down 
(1) for the marking of every attendance, (2) for the com- 
putation of the number of attendances registered for each 
child in every year and in every separate school term, (3) 
for the computation of averages in each class, and of the 
whole school : the total number of all the registered at- 
tendances being of course for this purpose divided by the 
number of times in which the school has been open. No 
erasures are ever allowed. An exact estimate is thus 
easily arrived at as to the degree in which the work of the 
school has been interrupted by irregularity of attendance, 
and as to the proportion of the actual attendance to the 
number of those whose names appear on the school reg- 
isters. IsTothing so elaborate is needed in the case of higher 
schools, partly because no grant of public money is in- 
volved, and partly because in such schools the scholars 
attend much more regularly. But I am sure that the im- 
portance of careful registration is insui^iciently recognized 
in our secondary and high schools ; and I think that even 
in the best of them it is essential that there should be a 
systematic record for each pupil of these particulars : (1) 
the date of admission and the exact age ; (2) the date of 
promotion to a higher class or of the entry on a new study ; 
(3) absence ; (4) lateness ; (5) the result of each examina- 
tion ; (6) any punishment or failure of duty. 



90 Lectures on Teaching. 

You want all these particulars for your own satisfac- 
tion : and also for reference when you send 
Commtuiica- -^ 

tionto to the parent of each scholar, at the end of 

parents. ^ ' 

the term^ a tabulated statement showing his 

precise position as to attendance^ conduct, and progress. 
The particulars which parents have a right to expect from 
a well-ordered school, and which may easily be recorded and 
summarized at the end of the term wherever the habitual 
book-keeping is careful, are these : 

The number of times in which the scholar has been ab- 
sent from a lesson or late in attendance. 

The result of any examinations which may have been 
held within the term. 

The number of scholars in the class to which he be- 
longs. 

His standing, in order of merit, in regard to each sub- 
ject of instruction. 

His place in the form or class, as determined by the col- 
lective result of his work. 

A general estimate of his conduct. 

So long as these particulars are held in view, it matters 

little what form the report takes. You will 

r^pM-fsof of course preserve a duplicate of every such 



progress. 



report. Each teacher will do well to adopt 
his own form, and to determine on his own particular 
mode of estimation, whether arithmetical, by the use of 
mere figures or marks ; or more general, by the use of 
such symbols as Excellent, Good, Fair, Moderate, and Im- 
perfect. The thing to be chiefly borne in mind in the 
choice of your system of marking is to reduce to a mini- 
mum the chance of caprice and guess-work, and not to at- 
tempt to record anything unless you have carefully pre- 



The School-room and Its Appliances, 91 

served the data by which you can assure yourself that the 
record is thoroughly accurate. Some teachers^ in their 
zeal for comprehensiveness of statement, have columns for 
deportment, for politeness, and for other moral qualities 
which are in their nature very difficult to estimate, and in 
respect to which haphazard and therefore somewhat un- 
just estimates are almost necessarily made. For example 
I have seen in some foreign schools columns for register- 
ing " moralite d^eleves," " dispositions naturelles," and 
other impossible data. Here the rule is a good one : Do 
not pretend to measure with arithmetical exactness quali- 
ties and results which are essentially incapable of such 
measurement. 

In the French Lycees, the system of registration is often 
very elaborate. There is (1) Eegistre d^inscription, (2) 
Eegistre d'appel, or attendance, (3) Eegistre des Compo- 
sitions, and (4) Eegistre des bons points, in which marks 
are recorded for conduct, and for the results of every class 
or other examination. The whole of these marks are added 
up and tabulated at the end of every month, a copy being 
kept by the pupil, and one sent to his parents or guar- 
dians. 

One of the requirements in the public elementary 
schools, which at first appeared to many of ^^^^^^1 
the teachers to be a needless addition to the diaries. 
routine and burden of their lives, is the keeping of what 
called a Log-book or School Diary. It is a thick volume, 
such as will last for a good many years, and is generally 
fastened with a Bramah lock. The Code requires that 
entries shall be made in this book at least once a week, 
and that thus a record shall be kept of the Inspector's re- 
port_, of changes in the staff, of visits of managers, and 



9^ Lectures on Teaching. 

other facts concerning the school and its teachers. It is 
not permitted to enter reflections or opinions of a general 
character. Now the practice thus enforced by anthority 
has come to be generally approved and liked on its own 
merits^ and has been found of considerable value. Many 
little circumstances in the history of a school which ap- 
pear of no importance at the moment require to be re- 
called afterwards^ and are seen to have unexpected value 
when referred to. The date of the entry of a new teacher 
en his duty^ the introduction of any new school-book^ or 
plan, or piece of apparatus ; the starting of a new series 
of lessons ; the result of a periodical examination ; special 
occurrences m relation to the discipline of the school ; 
j)romotion of scholars from one class to another ; any un- 
usual circumstance which affects the attendance ; the visit 
of a stranger or a governor — all these are matters which 
are easy to jot down at the time of their occurrence ; and 
which serve to make up the history of the school, and to 
give continuity and interest to its life. The adoption of 
the plan may be strongly recommended in schools of all 
grades. 

It may be well also to remember that, especially in 
School book- schools of any size in which the number of 
keeping:. books and the quantity of school material given 

out is large, there should always be a Stock-book, in which 
a ledger is kept, showing how and when books and sta- 
tionery are given out, and to whom. The office of keep- 
ing the needful record is a very simple one, which may 
well devolve on an assistant, or even on an elder scholar ; 
and it will be found that the practice conduces to economy 
and order ; and enables you to know exactly in what di- 
rection to look, if you have reason to suspect negligence or 
waste. 



The School-room and Its Appliances, 93 

I spoke in the first lecture of the importance of the 
habit of preparing- the notes of many and in- jeachers' 
deed most of the lessons you give. To this I note-books, 
may now add that such notes should not be on fugitive 
scraps, but should always be made in a book and carefully 
preserved. Unless a teacher does this habituall} he squan- 
ders much time and effort, and has the weary task of pre- 
paring many of his lessons over again. Suppose you keep 
a brief record of the plan and order of each lesson, of the 
books or authorities you consulted in getting it up ; sup- 
pose you add a little note after giving it, stating whether- 
it proved too long or too short, too easy or too difficult ; 
and indicating for your own private information how it 
might be more effectively given next time ; and lastly sup- 
pose you leave a blank space at the end of each, and enter 
in it from time to time, as new information comes in your 
way, other facts or references which will be helpful when- 
ever you go over the same ground again ; you will find the 
practice easy and well calculated to economize time and 
power. It will bring all your wider reading and added ex- 
perience to bear on the enrichment of your professional 
resources ; it wdll aid you in gathering up the fragments 
of life's teaching " that nothing be lost." 

In the higher classes, and for all lessons which take 
the form of lectures, it is a good practice to scholars' 
let the scholars have note-books, to take down note-books, 
at the moment any details which are likely to escape the 
memory. But such note-taking is of no value whatever, 
unless the notes are used afterwards as helps to the writ- 
ing out of an amplified and careful summary of the con- 
tents of the lesson. Mere note-taking is often one of the 
most delusive and unfruitful of practices. Consider for a 
moment, what is the purpose which the taking of notes 



94 Lectures on Teaching. 

ought to serve. I have seen students in reading Fronde's 
history, or Mill's Logic, sit down with the book on one side 
of them and a large note or commonplace hook on the 
other into which they have laboriously made copious ex- 
tracts. There seems to be a good deal to show for this 
effort ; but the result often is that the author's thoughts 
have merely been transferred out of one book into 
another ; and the proportion of these thoughts which have 
actually found a lodgment in the student's intelligence is 
very small indeed. There has been a mechanical process 
of appropriation, not a rational one.^ 

The true way to make notes of a book when you read it 

iTote-takinff ^^ — ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^-"^ — ^^ mark in the margin 
generally. -j-j^g passages which you feel to be of most 
value, and to make at the end a little index of references, 
which will differ from the printed index, in being specially 
suited to you, and calculated to help you in consulting 
the book hereafter. But except for these purposes, I 
would not read with a pencil in hand, or copy out ex- 
tracts. It is far better to read through an entire chapter 
or section, while the whole faculty is bent on following 
the reasoning or understanding the facts. Then when you 
have closed the book, and while your memory is fresh, sit 
down, and reproduce in your own words as much of the 
contents of the chapter as you please. By this means you 
will have been forced to turn the subject over in your 
own mind, to ruminate a little, and so to make it your own 

^ " Men seldom read again what they have committed to paper, 
nor remember what they have so committed one iota the better 
for their additional trouble. On the contrary, I believe it has a 
direct tendency to destroy the promptitude and tenuity of mem- 
ory by diminishing the vigor of present attention and seducing 
the mind to depend on future reference," — Sydney Smith. 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 95 

But unless this process of rumination goes on^ there is no 
security that any of the knowledge you are tr3dng to ac- 
quire is actually assimilated. And the same rule applies 
to the use of note-books during lectures. Many students 
make a great effort to seize rapidly whole sentences and 
to set them down at the time ; but while they are writing 
one down, another follows which gravely modifies the 
first, and this escapes them. Thus they get a few disjointed 
fragments, torn from their proper connection, and they 
fail to gain any true intellectual advantage from the whole. 
I am aware that the judicious use of a note-book depends 
a good deal on the special character of the teaching ; and 
that a good many lecturers in the Universities and else- 
where expressly adapt their prelections to the case of stu- 
dents who take notes. I have heard very able lectures 
which took the form of measured, brief, but very pregnant 
sentences, in which the lecturer had been at the pains to 
concentrate as much thought as possible ; these sentences 
being slowly uttered, with a sufhcient pause at the end of 
each, to allow quick writers to take down the whole ver- 
latim. Undoubtedly the note-book result in such cases 
seems to have considerable value. But it may well be 
doubted whether the most effective teaching ever takes 
the form of a dictation lesson ; still more may it be 
doubted whether when this method is adopted enough is 
done to make the students thinkers as well as receivers, 
on the subject which they learn. Whenever the object 
of the lecture is to expound principles, to illustrate them 
in an ample and varied way, and to show the learner rather 
the processes by which the results are arrived at than the 
formulated results and conclusions themselves, you fail 
to derive any real advantage from very copious note-tak- 
ing. It is distracting, not helpful. You get a few de- 



g6 Lectures on Teaching, 

tached sentences, perhaps, which in an unqualified way 
and out of their true perspective are no fair representa- 
tion of the lecturer's meaning : tlie continuity of his ar- 
gument is broken while you are picking out these frag- 
ments ; and you fail wholly to get the particular kind 
of stimulus and help which the lecturer wants to give. 
If, on the other hand, you will listen attentively, seek to 
follow the reasoning, and to possess yourself not only of 
the aphorisms and conclusions, but of the processes by 
which they have been arrived at ; and perhaps now and 
then jot down a characteristic phrase, a heading or some 
hint as to the order of the thought ; and tlien, on get- 
ting home, revolve the whole matter in your mind, and 
write down in your ov/n words an orderly summary of 
your recollections, there will be a genuine acquisition. 
You will be sure that some at least of what you have tried 
to learn has been actually assimilated. And I would 
counsel the adoption of the same rule in permitting your 
scholars the practice of note-taking. Teach them how to 
use note-books. Do not let them suppose that the re- 
production of your phrases is of any use. Do not mistake 
means for ends. It is a chemical not a mechanical com- 
bination you want. It is the writing out of memo- 
randa after the lecture which serves this purpose and is 
of real intellectual value ; not the notes taken during the 
lecture itself. And of these notes you have no assurance 
that they have served any good purpose unless they are 
ultimately translated out of your phraseology into the 
student's own language. 

On the larger subject of School-books and Manuals 

much might be said. But it would obviously 

be beside the mam purpose of these lectures 

if I were to take upon myself to recommend particular 



The School-room and Its Appliances, 97 

books, and so possibly to do injustice to the authors and 
publishers of many excellent books which I have never 
seen. The truth is that goodness and fitness in a school- 
book are not absolute but relative terms. They depend 
entirely on the person who uses it. That book is the best 
for each teacher which he feels he can use best, and which 
suits best his own method and ideal of work. Even if the 
best conceivable criticism could be brought to bear on 
all the innumerable manuals now in use, and they could 
be arranged in the order of abstract merit, such criticism 
might not help you much. There would still remain for 
each of you the responsibility of making your own choice. 
Indeed some of the best and most vigorous teaching I 
have ever heard has been given by teachers who were con- 
sciously using a very bad book, and who were goaded by 
it into remonstrance and criticism, which were in them- 
selves very instructive and stimulating to the learner. I 
remember well my own teacher of mathematics. Profes- 
sor De Morgan, and his animated polemic against Dil- 
worth and Walkinghame, and especially poor Eobert 
Simson's edition of Euclid. His anger, his pitiless sar- 
casm, as he denounced the dulness of these writers and 
exposed the crudeness of their mathematical conceptions, 
were in themselves well calculated to sharpen the percep- 
tions of his students. The bad book in the hands of a 
skilful teacher proved to be better than the best book in 
the hands of an ordinary practitioner. I am not, how- 
ever, prepared to recommend ^e use of bad , books as a 
general expedient. But it cannot be too clearly under- 
stood that the right choice of a book depends entirely on 
the use you mean to make of it. 

If you are, as every teacher ought to be, fluent and skilful 
in oral exposition, you will need very little of the sort of 



98 Lectures on Teaching. 

explanation which school-books <3ontain; your chief want 
will be supplied by books of well-graduated exercises, by 
which your oral teaching may be supplemented, fixed, 
thrust home, and brought to a point. But if, on the other 
hand, you want explanations, rules, and a knowledge of 
principles, mere books of exercises will not suffice. You 
need the treatises more or. less full, — say of grammar, of 
arithmetic, of geography,— and I will not promise that 
when you have got the best of them your pupils will be able 
to make progress with their help alone. The best explana- 
tions in school-books are concise, and therefore generally 
inadequate. They need expansion and much comment. 
The Educational Eeading Eoom at South Kensington is 
a great resource. In it you will always find very easy of 
access all the newest and best school-books, which you can 
sit down and examine, and from which it is not difficult 
to determine what form of manual will suit your purpose 
best. 

Some of the tests by which the goodness of a school- 
book may be determined are not however diffi- 
Some tests 
of a good cult to lay down. Take a Eeadiner-book for 

school-book. "^ ^ . 

example. You have here to secure: that it is 

well printed and attractive, that it is not silly and too 
childish, that the passages selected are not too short and 
scrappy, but continuous enough to be of some value in 
sustaining thought, and that every lesson contains a few — 
a very few — new words which are distinct additions to the 
reader's vocabulary. Above all it concerns you to be much 
more anxious about the style than about the amount of 
information which is packed into the book. So also of a 
book of History or Science, I should not choose that which 
comprised in it the greatest mass of facts, but that which 
was best written and most likely to encourage the student 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 99 

to desire a larger and fuller book. As to French, Latin and 
English Grammars, to hooks on Arithmetic and Geography, 
it concerns us much more to secure a good logical arrange- 
ment of rules; proper distinction of type between impor- 
tant and unimportant facts, between typical rules and ex- 
ceptional rules ; with good searching and well-arranged 
exercises, than anything else. One good test of a Grammar 
or delectus, or of a manual of any kind, is this : Does it, 
as soon as it has helped the student to know something, 
instantly set him to do something which requires him to 
use that knowledge, and to show that he has really ac- 
quired it ? E.g. If it explains a new term, does it require 
the learner soon to use that term ? If it states a rule, does 
it give him instantly occasion to put the rule in practice ? 
If it points out a new logical or grammatical distinction, 
does it challenge him forthwith to find new instances and 
illustrations of that distinction ? These seem to me to be 
the chief purposes which a book can serve — to supple- 
ment oral teaching, not to furnish an excuse for dispensing 
with it. I suppose the task of making compendiums, and 
trying to reduce the essence of a good many books into a 
cheap school manual, is a depressing one. At all events 
school-books must, I fear, as a rule be placed in the cate- 
gory — let us say — of uninspired writings. Their authors 
often evince a great want of imagination and a curious 
incapacity to discriminate between the significant and in- 
significant, between the little and the great. That is pre- 
cisely the deficiency wdiich a good teacher has to supply, 
and it can only be supplied by vigorous oral teaching. 
The usefulness and need of School Libraries depend very 

much on the character of the school. In every 

Libraries. 
Boarding School they are indispensable ; as 

children have leisure to be filled and tastes to be formed. 



loo Lectures on Teaching. 

and a life to live which is not wholly that of the school. 
But even in Day Schools there is great need for such ad- 
juncts to the materials for instruction^ and this need is 
becoming more and more recognized. Until a good library 
is attached as a matter of course to every one of our ele- 
mentary schools^ a great opportunity of refining the taste 
and enlarging the knowledge of the young will continue 
to be wasted^ and the full usefulness of those institutions 
will remain unattained. After all^ it is the main business 
of a primary school^ and indeed a chief part of the busi- 
ness of every school, to awaken a love of reading, and to 
give children pleasant associations with the thought of 
books. When once a strong appetite for reading has been 
excited the mere money difficulty of providing the library 
in a school for the poor is already half overcome. For sub- 
scriptions from children and their parents, gifts from 
kindly friends, are obtainable without much difficulty, 
whepever a teacher makes up his mind that the object is 
worth attaining, and casts about in earnest for the means 
of attaining it. 

ISTow granting that you have to form a school library. 
How to ^^' ^^^^^ your advice is asked by those who desire 

choose them. \^q purchase or give one, what sort of books 
will you select ? That is a question worth thinking about. 
In the first place, you will get books of reference, good 
manuals, such as you need for amplifying a school lesson. 
You constantly have to say in teaching: " There is a fuller 
account of this incident in such a book." " There are 
some anecdotes about this animal, or a poem descriptive of 
this place, by such a writer." Or ^^ I should like you to 
read up the life of this eminent man before we have our 
next lesson." And for purposes like these it is of great 
importance to have the best books of reference — books 
fuller and larger than mere school-books — within reach. 



The School-room and Its Appliances. loi 

■---^^ _ 

This remark applies to all schools alike. But besiaes this, 

it adds to the value of a child's school-life, if something 
can be done by it to direct his reading and to teach him 
how to fill his leisure profitably. In a secondary day- 
school, to which pupils come from orderly and intelligent 
homes, this particular purpose is of less importance than 
elsewhere, because it may be presumed that educated pa- 
rents will look after the leisure reading of their children. 
It is in schools for the poor, and in all boarding-schools, 
that a general library is most needed. 

Yet in making the selection I would not, in the first 

place, fill the library with children's books, 

11 1 1 1 -. 1 -1 Not always 

though of course there should be a sjood many children's 

^ D ^ books. 

of them. Children often rebel, and with good 
cause, against books written purposely for them as a class. 
Such books are often too obviously written down to the 
level of a child's understanding. The childishness and 
simplicity which are affected by many persons who write 
children's books have a falsetto ring about them wdiich an 
intelligent child soon detects. He is no more content to 
confine his reading to books written specially for him as a 
child than you or I would be to read such books as are 
considered specially appropriate for persons of our age 
and profession. We want, and a child wants, to read some 
books, not specially meant for us or the class to which 
we belong, but which are good and interesting in them- 
selves, and were meant for the wdiole world. Nor would 
I confine my selection of library books to what ^^^ t, ^^^^ 
are technically called good books. I mean to ^ooks." 
books which are consciously instructive and moral. You 
do not want to be always reading such books yourselves. 
You know, even those of you who are most earnest in 
efforts after self-improvement, that you do not regulate 
all your reading with the distinct intention of getting in- 



I02 Lectures on Teaching, 

struction and improving yonr mind. Assume this to be 
true of a child. Eemember, if he is ever to love readings 
he must have room left to him to exercise a little choice. 
Think how rich the world is, how much there is to he 
known about it, its structure, its products, its' relation to 
other worlds, its -people, the great things that have been 
done in it, the great speculations that have been indulged 
in it, the very varied forms in which happiness has been 
enjoyed in it. And do not forget that, beyond the regioii 
of mere information about these things, there is the whole 
domain of wonderland, of fancy, of romance, of poetry, 
of dreams and fairy tales. Do not let us think scorn of 
that pleasant land, or suppose that all the fruit in the 
garden of the Lord grows on the tree of knowledge. 
Wonder, curiosity, the sense of the infinite, the love of 
w^hat is vast and remote, of the strange and the picturesque 
— all these things it is true are not knowledge in the school 
sense of the word. But they are capable in due time of 
being transformed into knowledge, — nay, into something 
better than knowledge — into wisdom and insight and 
power. 

So let us abstain from any attempt to direct a child's 
general reading in accordance with our own special tastes. 
Let us remember that all children have not the same in- 
tellex^tual appetites, and that the world would be a very 
uninteresting wo^ld if they had. We need not be disap- 
pointed if even our favorite pupils show reluctance to read 

the books which we specially recommend, and 
anceshouid" ^0 admire what we admire. Of course, we 
differen?*^^ have first to take care that all lessons are 
Stes!*^ ^^^^' <iiligeutly finished, and that all due use is made 

of the library for legitimate school purposes. 
But when this is done, and you come to consider the kind 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 103 

of service which a library should render to a child in his 
hours of leisure, and for his own enjo3aiient, I think the 
true rule of action is first to make your library as full and 
varied as you can, then to exclude from it resolutely all 
books which you yourself are sorry you ever read, or would 
be ashamed to be seen reading — all books which for any 
reason you believe to be harmful; and when you have done 
this, turn the scholar loose into the library and let him 
read what and how he likes. Have faith in the instincts 
of a child, and in the law of natural selection. Believe 
that for him, as for yourself, it is true that any book which 
is really enjoyed, which enlarges the range of the thoughts, 
which fills the mind with sweet fancies or glowing pictures, 
which makes the reader feel happier and richer, is worth 
reading, even though it serves no visible purpose as part of 
school education. 

The uses to wdiich School Museums may be put are 
manifold, but are not all obvious at first sight, school- 
It is manifest that if Botany is taught, a col- museums. 
lection of the wild flowers of the district, properly pressed 
and classified, will be a useful resource. But even if this 
subject is not systematically taught, such a collection, 
with carefully prepared specimens of the leaf, the flower, 
the fruit, of the trees, ferns and grasses, and cereals of 
the district, when properly named, will have scarcely less 
interest and value. Specimens of the insects to be found 
in the district, of the stones and shells from the seashore, 
of the material employed in some local manufacture, and 
of its condition in its successive stages; illustrations of the 
geological formation of the district; a clay or plaster model 
showing the conformation of the neighboring hills and 
valleys; drawings or specimens illustrating the antiquities 
and historical associations of near places, will all have their 



104 Lectures on Teaching. 

place in such a collection. When once a suitable re- 
ceptacle has been provided for such things, and arrange- 
ments have been made, by the appointment of curators or 
otherwise, for keeping it in seemly condition, it is sur- 
prising to observe what pride the scholars often feel in it, 
how it serves to keep their eyes open to find new and suit- 
able objects, and how glad they are to contribute to it. 
A museum of this kind cannot be purchased or set up all 
at once; it must grow, and be the product of willing work- 
ers and observers. Its purpose need not be wholly scientific 
or even instructive. It may with advantage be made the 
depository for any little work of invention or art which 
the scholars can themselves produce. One may contribute 
a drawing, another a piece of needlework unusually well 
finished, another an effort at design, a model of a neighbor- 
ing church or 'castle, or a set of illustrations of some form 
of manufacture in which his father is engaged. Every 
scholar may be encouraged to leave behind him before quit- 
ting school some little memorial of himself, his doings, 
or his special tastes. A mere general museum of odds and 
ends which anybody chooses to present to the school, and 
with which the scholars have no associations, is of little 
worth. However small your collection, it should be charac- 
teristic of the school and of its special studies, its history 
and its surroundings. And if it fulfills this condition, it 
will not only be found a useful adjunct to your scientific 
teaching, but also a means of encouraging the develop- 
ment of any special gift the scholars may possess, and of 
increasing their loyalty to the school. 

We shall, in connection with each of the subjects of 
Costly nius- instruction hereafter discussed, refer to the 
aiways^h? particular form of apparatus or material aid 
best. which lends itself best to the furtherance of 

the teacher's objects. But one general observation may be 



The School-room and Its Appliances. 105 

made here. New and ingenious forms of meclianieal aid 
for teaching are being devised every day, and pnblisliers 
and instrument-makers are interested in multiplying them. 
It may occur to some of us that the material equipments 
of a good school are thus becoming more complex, and 
threatening to be very costly. It may partly console us to 
remember that the elaborate illustrations which cost most 
money are not necessarily the most effective. A good copy 
set by a writing-master is often more useful than an en- 
graved copy. A rough black-board drawing of the par- 
ticular river or county which you are describing impresses 
and interests scholars more than a painted map. A rude 
model in sand or clay, made up in sight of the scholars, 
will illustrate the set of a glacier or the formation of a lake 
better than any purchased model. To count the panes of 
glass in a window, or the pictures on the wall, is not leas 
instructive, and much more interesting, than to count the 
balls on an abacus or frame. In short, illustrations made 
pro liac vice, and visibly contrived by the teacher's own in- 
genuity for the elucidation of the particular truth he wants 
to teach, are often found to serve their purpose much more 
effectually than the manufactured illustrations which you 
buy at shops. 

It is, after all, but a few detached suggestions as to the 
material surroundings of a teacher, and as to school equip- 
ment generally, that we have thus been able to offer you. 
But the general impression which it has been sought to con- 
vey is that no amount of care and inventiveness and fore- 
thought which you are able to devote to these little things 
will be wasted, and that whatever tends to make the school- 
room brighter, healthier, comelier, more orderly, tends to 
economize time and temper, and to diminish the friction 
inseparable from a laborious school life. Above all, you 



io6 Lectures on Teaching. 

cannot, by putting yourself into the hands of publishers, 
instrument-makers, or even of lecturers on teaching, escape 
from the responsibility of looking at each of these problems 
with fresh eyes ; and of determining how far the helps 
and contrivances which other people have used are avail- 
able for your own special aims and special needs, and in 
what way they may be best adapted to them. 



Discipline o 107 



lY. DISCIPLINE. 

I HAYE thought it right to dedicate one of these lectures 
to the consideration of a teacher's character xhe teacher 
rather as a ruler and administrator than as an fst^Jtor^d" 
instructor. For it need not be said that he who ^^i^^- 
can teach but cannot govern works at an enormous disad- 
vantage. Perfect discipline in a class or a school is an in- 
dispensable condition of successful teaching. It is neces- 
sary for the pupils^ not only because by it they will learn 
in a given time twice as much and twice as easily; but 
because one of the things they come to school to acquire 
over and above certain arts and accomplishments which 
are generally termed education^ is the practice of obedi- 
ence. The habit of subjugating one's own impulses, of 
constantly recognizing the supremacy of law, and bring- 
ing our actions into harmony with it, is one of the first 
conditions of an orderly and well-disciplined life. He who 
does not at least acquire that at school has been under 
instruction to little purpose, whatever progress he may 
have made in technical learning. And it is of no less con- 
sequence to the teacher. His own health, his temper, and 
his happiness suffer grievously if he cannot command per- 
fect obedience. One may secure, it by personal influence 
and another by force, and it will be easy for us to see which 
is the better method of the two. But by some means or 
other it must be had: it is better to gain it by force than 
not at all. For without it the school is a place of torment 
to all concerned, and must always remain inefficient' for 
every purpose which it professes to serve. 



io8 Lectures on Teaching. 

It may clear the ground a little if I say how obedience is 
not to be gained. You cannot get it by demanding or 
Obedience claiming it; by declaring that you will have it; 
byVemattd-^ or even explaining to your scholars how useful 
i^s^it- and indispensable it is. Obedience is a habit, 

and must be learned like other habits, rather by practice 
than by theory; by being orderly, not by talking about 
order. There are some things on which it is well to draw 
out the intelligence and sympathies of a child, and to make 
him understand the full reason and motive of what you do. 
But on this point I would not, except on rare and special 
occasions, enter into any discussions, or offer any explana- 
tions. All entreaty — " ISTow do give me your attention; " 
-^all self-assertion — '' I ivill have order; ^^ — all threats — 
" If you don't attend to me, I will punish you ; '' are in 
themselves signs of weakness. They beget and propagate 
disobedience; they never really correct it. All nofse and 
shouting aggravate the evil, and utterly fail to produce 
more than a temporary lull at best. 

" He who in quest of silence ' silence ' hoots, 
Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes." 

All talk about discipline in a school is in fact mischievous. 
To say '^ I ought to be obeyed '' is to assume that a child's 
knowledge is to be the measure of his obedience, to invite 
him to discuss the grounds of your authority, perhaps to 
dispute it. A nation, you know, is in an abnormal state 
while its members are debating the rights of man or the 
fundamental principles of government. There should be 
underlying all movement and political activity, a settled 
respect for law and a feeling that law once made must be 
obeyed. So no family life of a right kind is possible, if 
the members ever treat the authority of the parent as an 



Discipline, 109 

open question. The duty of obeying is not so mucn a thing 
to be learned per se. It must be learned before the learn- 
ing of anything else becomes possible. It is like food 01 
air in relation to our bodily lives; not a thing to be sought 
for and possessed for itself^ but an antecedent condition, 
without which all other possessions become impossible. 
So it is not well in laying down a school rule to say any- 
thing about the penalty which will fall upon those who 
transgress it. Show that you do not expect transgression; 
and then, if it comes, treat it — as far as you can with per- 
fect candor and honesty do so — as something which sur- 
prises and disappoints you; and for which you must apply 
some remedy rather for the scholar's sake than your own. 
N'ow the first way to secure obedience to commands is 

to make every rule and regulation you lay down 
x-u X.- i 4? 4? 1 • xV 1 X T^ Commands 

the subiect 01 careful previous thouo^ht. De- to be well 
X • XI 1 X 11 considered 

termme on the best course and be sure you are before they 

are given. 
right. Then you will gain confidence in your- 
self, and without such confidence authority is impossible. 
Be sure that if you have any secret misgiving as to the 
vrisdom of the order you give or as to your own power ulti- 
mately to enforce it, that misgiving will reveal itself in 
some subtle way, and your order will not be obeyed. An 
unpremeditated or an indefinite command — one the full 
significance of which you yourself have not understood — 
often proves to be a mistake, and has to be retracted. And 
every time you retract an order your authority is weakened, 
l^ever give a command unless you are sure you can enforce 
it, nor unless you mean to see that it is obeyed. You must 
not shrink from any trouble which may be necessary to 
carry out a regulation you have once laid down. It may 
involve more trouble than you were prepared for; but that 
trouble you are bound to take, in your scholar's interest 



no Lectures on Teaching, 

and in your own. We must not evade the consequences 
of our own orders, even when we did not foresee or even 
desire all of them. The law om^e laid down should he re- 
garded as a sacred thing, binding the lawgiver as much as 
the subject. Every breach of it on the scholar's part, and 
all wavering or evasion in the enforcement of it on your 
own, puts a premium on future disobedience and goes far 
to weaken in the whole of your pupils a sense of the sac- 
redness of law. 

And when rules and orders descend to details, your 
superviision should be so perfect' that you will certainly 
know whether in all these details the orders have been 
obeyed or not. Unless you can make arrangements for 
detecting a breach of law with certainty, do not lay 
down a law at all. It may be replied to this, that an atti- 
tude of habitual suspicion is not favorable to the culti- 
vation of self-respect in a scholar, and that you want often 
to trust him and show you rely on his honor. True. The 
development of the conscience and of the sentiment of 
honor is one of your highest duties ; but in cases where 
you can safely appeal to the sense of honor, it is not a 
command which is wanted, but a wish, a principle, a re- 
quest. You explain that a certain course of action is right 
or desirable or honorable in itself ; and you say to your 
scholar, " Xow I think you see what I *mean ; I shall 
trust you to do it.'' That is, you part in some degree 
with your own prerogative as a governor, and invite him 
to take a share in his self-government. But you do not 
put your wishes into the form of a command in this case. 
Commands are for those in whom the capacity for self-com- 
mand is imperfectly developed ; and in their case vigi- 
lance does not imply suspicion : it is for them absolutely 
needful to know^ that when you say a thing has to be done. 



Discipline, 1 1 1 

you mean for certain to know whether it is done or not. 

Involuntary and mechanical obedience has to be learned 

first ; the habit of conscious, voluntary, rational obedience 

will come by slow degrees. 

And let us not forget that admirable rule so often 

quoted from Jean Paul Richter, " Pas trop 

7 5 111 X. Over-eovern- 

gouverner ; we should not over-govern, we ment to be 

should never multiply commands, nor need- ^^°^ 
lessly repeat one. Our governing force should be re- 
garded by us as a bank reserve, on which we should be 
afraid to draw too often, because it may become exhausted. 
Every good ruler economizes power, and never puts it all 
forth at once. Children should feel, when they see us 
exercising authority, that there is a great reserve of un- 
used strength and resolution behind, which they can 
neither see nor measure. It is not the visible exercise of 
power which impresses children most, but the unseen, 
Avliich affects their imagination, and to which they can 
assign no limit. And this is most fully felt when the 
manner of putting forth strength is habitually calm and 
quiet, when you abstain from giving commands in regard 
to things which are indifferent, and when such commands 
as you give are few and short. '^ Even a grown man,^' 
says Richter, '' whom some one should follow all day 
long with movable pulpit and stool of confession, from 
which to hurl sermons and anathemas, could never attain 
any real activity and moral freedom. How much less 
then a weak child, who at every step in life must be en- 
tangled Avith a ^ stop,' ' run,' ' be quiet,' ^ do 'this, do 
that ' ? Your watch stops while you wind it up, and you 
everlastingly wind up children and never let them go." 
We have not to think of a scholar merely as material put 
into our hands to mould and manipulate, but rather as a 



112 Lectures on Teaching. 

responsible human beings whom we are so to help, that 
as soon as possible he may regulate his own life, and be 
a law unto himself. Keep clearly in view your own re- 
sponsibilities, but the less display you make of your dis- 
ciplinary apparatus, and the more freedom you can leave 
to the pupil, the better. Eeduce as far as possible the 
number of formal rules ; and remember that the perfec- 
tion of government is to effect the maximum result with 
the minimum of visible machinery. 

And yet you will gain much in a school by cultivating 
the habit of order and exact obedience about 

Drill and 

mechanical little things. There are right and beautiful 

ways and there are clumsy and confused ways 
— of sitting down at a desk, of moving from one place to 
another, of handling and opening books, of cleaning 
slates, of giving out pens and paper, of entering and leav- 
ing school. Petty as each of these acts is separately, they 
are important collectively, and the best teachers habit- 
ually reduce all these movements to drill, and require 
them to be done simultaneously, and with finished and 
mechanical exactness. Much of this drill is conducted 
in some good schools by signs only, not merely because 
it is easy so to economize noise and voice-power, but also 
because it makes the habit of mechanical obedience 
easier. And children once accustomed to such a regime 
always like it- — nay, even delight in it. I have seen many 
schools, both small and large, in which all the little move- 
ments from class to class were conducted with military 
precision ; in which even so little a thing as the passing 
of books from hand to hand, the gathering up of pens, or 
the taking of places at the dinner-table, of hats or bon- 
nets from their numbered places in the hall, was done 
with a rhythmical beauty, sometimes to musical accom- 



Discipline. 113 

paniment, which not only added to the picturesqneness of 
the school life, and to the enjoyment of the scholars^, but 
also contributed much to their moral training and to their 
sense of the beauty of obedience. And I have no doubt 
that it is a wise thing for a teacher to devise a short code 
of rules for the exact and simultaneous performance of 
all the minor acts and movements of school life, and to 
drill his scholars into habitual attention to them. 

Does it seem to some of you that there is a little in- 
consistency between the last two counsels I Limits to its 
have ventured to give you — the one, that you usefulness. 
should not waste power by a needless multiplication of 
rules ; the other, that you should turn the little ones into 
machines, even in regard to such matters' as sitting and 
standing at a desk, or opening a book ? There is indeed, 
if 5^ou will look at it, no inconsistency between these two 
views of your duty. There is a sphere of our life in which 
it is desirable to cultivate independence and freedom ; and 
there is another in which it is essential that we should 
learn to part with that independence for the sake of at- 
taining some end which is desirable for others as well as 
for ourselves. In the development of individual charac- 
ter and intelligence, the more room we can leave for spon- 
taneous action the better ; but when we are members of 
a community, the healthy corporate life of that commu- 
nity requires of us an abnegation of self. The soldier in 
an army must qua that army forgo his personal volition, 
and become part of a great machine, which is working 
towards some greater end than could possibly be achieved 
if he retained complete autonomy. And every one among 
us is called, as citizen, as member of a council or muni- 
cipality, or public company, to work with others towards 
ends which require unity of action, and which are incom- 
patible with the assertion of our individual rights. It is 



114 Lectures on Teaching. 

then for this class of duties that school should in some 
measure jorepare every child. He is in an artificial com- 
munity which has a life and needs of its own, and in so 
far as he contributes to make up this school life, he may 
be well content to suppress himself and to become a ma- 
chine. There are times in life for asserting our individ- 
uality, and there are times for effacing it. And a good 
school should 23rovide means whereby it may be seen when 
and how we may do both. 

This sense of corporate life and responsibility so essen- 
tial to the making of a good citizen may be 
porateiife further cultivated by providing, as far as pos- 
sible, that the second shall have something in 
it for the scholar to be proud of ; some function or ritual 
in wliich he shall be specially interested, and in which he 
can sustain an honorable part. I do no^t like a needless 
multiplication of unmeaning offices in a school, but every 
little function, such as that of curator of the books, or 
the copies, or the apparatus of a class, is in its way useful, 
if it makes the elder scholar feel that he can be heljDful 
to the younger, or that he can contribute something to 
the beauty or to the repute of the school as a whole. It 
is here as with the games in which the victory is not for 
an individual, but for the side, the company or the school 
to which the player belongs ; the very act of i^utting forth 
effort on behalf of the community tends powerfully to 
check selfishness and egoism, and to make the scholar 
conscious that the community has interests into which, 
for a time, it is both a duty and a privilege for him com- 
pletely to merge his own. 

Some there may be who as they hear me now are say- 
Difference ^"^^ ^^ themselves. This may be true in the 
between ^.^^q of large schools, but mine is a small shel- 

tered establishment, where we take great pains with the 



Discipline. 115 

formation of individual character^ and where we seek to 
make the discipline more like that of a family. IsTow let 
US tr}^ to clear our minds of illusions. It is not well to 
make believe that a school, even a small school, is a 
family ; because it is not one. Your relations to your 
pupils can never he those of a parent, and any 
pretence that they are has an unreality about pihfe and*^^" 
it which very 30on becomes evident both to t^^* of tome, 
them and to yourself. The fact is that a child is sent to 
school to obtain a kind of discipline which is impossible 
in a family, and to learn many things which he could not 
learn at home. The moral basis of family life is affec- 
tion. The moral basis of school life, as of that of all large 
communities, is justice. It is not difficult in a well- 
ordered home to learn courtesy, kindness, the sanctity and 
the happiness of self-sacrifice, because those virtues have 
to be exercised towards those whom we know and love. 
But in a school we are called on to respect the rights and 
consult the feelings of people whom we do not love, and 
whom we scarcely know. And this is a great part of edu- 
cation. It can only be attained when the corporate spirit 
is rightly called forth, when the equal claims of others 
are fully recognized, and when opportunities are offered 
for losing the sense of personal claims in those of com- 
radeship, and for evincing pride in the perfection and pros- 
perity of the school as an institution. 

And in governing, it is of the last importance that we 
should well consider the nature of the being 

whom we want to control, and not demand P?il^,?^t?£f 

' to DC Studied 

of him an impossible standard of virtue. A ^e°oniS«*' 
little child has not your seriousness, nor your 
sense of duty, nor your capacity for sitting still. He would 
be a very curious, almost an unpleasant phenomenon if 



ii6 Lectures on Teaching. 

he had. On the contrary^ nature makes him physically 
restless^, very curious^ mobile^ and inquisitive, and exceed- 
ingly deficient in reverence. And these qualities should 
be taken for granted and allowed for, not set down as 
faults. Provision should be made for giving lawful vent 
to his personal activity, and if such provision be not made, 
and he is called on to maintain a confined posture for an 
unreasonable time, his restlessness and disobedience are 
the teacher's fault, not his. Let us take for granted that 
in every fault of a child there is an element of good, 
" would men observingly distil it out," that every act of 
mischief he is guilty of is only an example of perfectly, 
healthy and legitimate activity, accidentally misdirected. 
And above all let us take care not to measure his fault 
by the inconvenience which it causes us, but ratlier by 
considering the motive and the causes of it. Some of the 
little wrong acts of a child which bring the most annoy- 
ance to a teacher and try his temper most are precisely 
those which from the point of view of a moralist are least 
blameworthy — talking at unreasonable times, destructive- 
ness, untidiness, noise. These things have to be checked 
of course. But do not let us confuse the conscience of a 
child by exaggerating their seriousness, or by treating of- 
fences against school rules as if they were breaches of the 
moral order of the universe. Consider what are the nat- 
ural instincts of a child, and how unformed his moral 
standard is, and you will see that relatively to him of- 
fences of this kind are not crimes, though relatively to 
you and to the school they may be serious annoyances. 
After all the great safeguard for good and happy dis- 

^■...r, ^- cipline in a school is to fill the time with 

Fill the time ^ 

with work. work. If a child is to have an interval oi 

leisure, let it be in the play-room or ground, where re- 



Discipline, 117 

laxation is permissible^ and even noise is not a sin. But 
let him have no intervals of leisure in school. There^ and 
in school' time, where play is not permitted, let work 
be systematically prescribed. You will of course take 
care that the work is duly varied, that it does not put 
too great a strain on one set of muscles, or one set of 
faculties; you will see that light mechanical work alter- 
nates duly with serious intellectual application. But work 
of some kind — work which is duly superintended, and 
which cannot be evaded, should be provided for every 
minute of the school day. " Let every child have," said 
Joseph Lancaster, '^ at all times, something to do and a 
motive for doing it." 

]N"o doubt this business of maintaining discipline comes 
more easily to some than others. There are 
some who seem qualified and designed by na- 3?commai^- 
ture to exercise ascendency over others. They Jcguired!^ 
are born like Hamlet's father with 

" An eye like Mars, to threaten and command," 

or better still they are naturally endowed with that sweet 
graciousness and attractiveness of manner which at once 
win confidence, and predispose the hearers to listen and 
obey. Of such a teacher her joupil may often say, as Eicli- 
ard Steele once said in the finest compliment ever paid to 
a lady, " That to love her is a liberal education." And 
yet those of us who are not thus equipped by nature have 
no right to be discouraged. Every one may acquire the 
power of ruling others by steadily setting himself to do 
so, by thinking well over his orders before he gives them, 
by giving them without faltering or equivocation, by obey- 
ing them himself, by determining in every case, and at 
whatever cost, to see them obeyed, and above all by taking 



ii8 Lectures on Teaching. 

care that tliey are reasonable and rights and properly 
adapted to the nature of childhood^ to its weaknesses and 
its needs. 

Since obedience and fixed attention are habits, they are 
The law of subject to the same law which is found to regu- 
Mbit. late all other habits. And this law is very 

curious and worth attention. In virtue of it we find that 
any one act which we perform to-day is easier to perform, 
to-morrow, and easier still next day, and afterwards be- 
comes so mechanical by frequent repetition that in due 
time it is difficult for us not to do it. We may observe 
this in ourselves, in all the little manual acts which we 
perform every day : they become exactly like one another 
even without any conscious desire on our part that they 
should be like. Our handwriting for instance becomes 
so fixed, that it is positively difficult for us to disguise it. 
And on the other hand all acts v\^hich we leave undone 
become daily more difficult ; the habit of not doing be- 
comes as confirmed as that of doing. Bishop Butler has 
analyzed this law of habit at much length, and with great 
subtletly, and he proves that all our habits, whether men- 
tal, bodily or moral, are strengthened by repeated acts. 
The practice of speaking the truth, of temperance, of 
charity, or of prompt obedience, becomes strengthened 
every time it is put into action. The question is as old 
as Aristotle, Does character produce actions, or do actions 
produce character ? Is, for example, a Inan a temperate 
man because he abstains from excessive indulgence ; or 
does he so abstain because he is a temperate and virtuous 
man ? Now no doubt either of these questions might in 
a sense be answered in the affirmative ; because habit and 
character act and react on each other. But in the long- 
run it is far truer to say that habits make character, than 



Discipline, 119 

to say cliaracter makes habits. Character has been not 
improperly called a bundle of habits. We are what we 
are not so much because of what we wish to be, nor of 
any sentiments we have formed^ but simply by virtue of 
what we are doing every day. And if, as is probably true 
of all of us, we are constantly saddened by noticing how 
far we fall short of our own ideal, there is but one remedy ; 
it is to place ourselves in new conditions, to brace our- 
selves up to some new effort, and to form a new set of 
habits. Mere meditation on what we wish to be, good 
resolutions, clear perception of the difference between 
right and wrong, are of little use unless they show them- 
selves in acts. Kay, they are worse than useless. Hear 
Butler : " Going over the theory of virtue in one's mind, 
talking well and drawing fine pictures of it : this is so far 
from necessarily or certainly conducing to form a habit of 
it in him who thus employs himself that it may harden 
the mind in a contrary course. . . . For, from our very 
faculty of habit, passive impressions by being repeated 
grow weaker. Thoughts by often passing through the 
mind are felt less sensibly. Being accustomed to danger 
begets intrepidity, i.e. lessens fear, and to distress lessens 
the emotion of pity. And from these two observations 
together, that practical habits are formed and strength- 
ened by repeated acts and that passive impressions grow 
weaker by being repeated, it may follow^ that motives and 
excitements (to right action) are continually less and less 
consciously felt, even as the active habits strengthen.'' 

ISTow, I know of no more fruitful or far-reaching truth 
in its bearing on a teacher's work than this, its bearing on 
nor one on which he will do well of tener to re- ^^^^^^ work. 
fleet. I say nothing of its bearing on your own personal 
character, on your capacity for work, on the steadiness 



120 Lectures on Teaching. 

and the method of your reading ; but think for a moment 
what it means in. relation to the pupils who come to you 
for instruction. It means that every jtime they come into 
your presence the habit of obedient attention is being 
either confirmed or weakened. It means that every un- 
regarded counsel or order of yours falls more ineffect- 
ually on the ear than the last. It means that prompt and 
exact obedience^ if insisted on in little things^ becomes 
available for great things ; it means in short that on the 
daily regime of your school depends the whole difference, 
for life, in the case of your pupils, between a wandering, 
loose, slipshod style of thinking and of reading, and an 
orderly and observant mind, one accustomed to put forth 
all its best powers and to bring them to bear on any object 
worthy of pursuit. And what a profound difference this 
is ! It is only when we try to realize it and to see it in re- 
lation to our own life, and to the lives of the people who 
are struggling and failing around us, that the true sig- 
nificance of early drill and discipline becomes apparent 
to us. 

The sports and recreations of childhood come fairly 
within the province of a schoolmaster and de- 
serve his careful thought. But it would be easy 
to err on the side of over-regulation and too minute direc- 
tion on this point. It is of the essence of healthy and really 
useful play that it should be spontaneous. What children 
are learning — and they are learning much — in play, ought 
to be learned unconsciously, and without any suspicion 
that they are being drilled and disciplined. Their own 
fresh instincts are here the safest guides to you, when you 
want to supply them with recreation. The toys which they 
like best are not merely objects to look at, such as would 
gratify the taste of older persons. The capacity for admira- 



Discipline, 121 

tion is soon ex}ia.=_^ecl in children. They like best some- 
thing to handle, to arrange, to derange, and to re-arrange ; 
a doll which can be dressed and undressed, a house of 
bricks which can be bnilt np and pulled down; a tool 
which can be actually used; a machine model or a puzzle 
which will take to pieces. It is not the beauty or the cost- 
liness of a toy which gives permanent pleasure to a child, 
but the possession of some object, however rude, which 
calls into exercise his faculties of invention, of tactual and 
physical activity, and even of destructiveness. For de- 
structiveness is not wholly a vice. It is in its way a 
symptom of curiosity and of inquisitiveness, of desire to 
know what a thing is made of, and how it is made. And 
this after all is the true philosophic instinct; without it w^e 
should have no great inventors, and make little or no ad- 
vance in science. We must not repress this instinct because 
some of its manifestations are apt to be inconvenient to 
us. It is our business to take the instinct for granted, to 
recognize its usefulness and to provide due scope for its 
exercise. This is now often done in great public schools, 
by attaching to them workshops, in which boys who have 
a mechanical turn are allowed to learn the use of tools and 
a turning-lathe, to make the apparatus used in the lessons 
on science as well as boxes and other useful articles for 
themselves. 

Eegular gymnastic and calisthenic exercises, graduated 
and arranged on a system, liaTe their value, 

, Gymnastics. 

though they are for several reasons less in favor 

In English than in French and G-erman schools. A covered 

gymnasium, with cross-bars, ropes and poles for leaping 

and climbing, is a useful appendage to every school. But 

it is not well to rely too much on this artificial help. Most 

good English teachers prefer to let nature have freer play. 



12 2 Lectures on Teaching. 

and suggest her own form of gymnastics. The movements 
of a healthy child in running, in leaping, in rowing, in 
swimming, in throwing a hall, in achieving some ohject 
which he cares to attain, are quite as valuable as the regu- 
lated preconcerted set of movements of a professor of 
gymnastics, and much more interesting. Taking a con- 
stitutional walk, for walking and for exercise' sake, is, as 
we all know, less enjoyable, and even less invigorating, 
than walking to some place we want to go to. So a child 
likes better to achieve some result, to overcome some diffi- 
culty, than to go through a set of exercises which are of 
no value except as exercises, and which lead to nothing in 
which he is interested. 

The need of free animal pastime is already so fully 
Overesti- recognized in Boys' schools, that there is some 
Sti^exer?" danger of overestimating its importance as an 
cisesfort)oys. element in school life. Considering that it is, 
at any rate, the first business of a school to encourage 
learning, and develop mental power, it is rather a dis- 
credit to some of our great schools that so large a propor- 
tion of time and thought should be devoted to athletics; 
and that success in cricket and football and rowing should 
so often be valued as much as intellectual distinction. We 
are in danger of presenting boys with a false ideal of manli- 
ness, when we lead them to suppose that they come to 
school merely to become healthy and robust. Let us by 
all means place scholars in conditions favorable to the 
highest physical activity and development, but do not let 
us so mistake the true proportions of things as to exalt 
mere healthy animalism into a school accomplishment or 
a moral virtue. The publicity and show often attendant 
on the exhibition of athletic sports in a school may easily 



Discipline. 123 

be carried to a miscliievous extent. It need not be said 
that we are in no sncli danger in schools for 
girls. There^ the great fault is the frigid needed for 
propriety, the languor and inaction, which too 
often fill up the leisure time. Girls need the free exercise 
of their limbs as much as their brothers, but they are not 
nearly so conscious of this need; and exercises must there- 
fore be devised for them. Tennis, fives, and even cricket 
are among the out-door games which would serve the pur- 
pose well; something more is wanted than mere dawdling 
in the open air over such a game as croquet; and as to 
the prim and solemn promenade two and two, under the 
severe scrutiny of an assistant mistress, it is hardly to be 
called relaxation in any sense. 

One of the hardest of the disciplinal problems of a board- 
ing-school is the regulation of the employ- 
ments for Sunday. You want that the day boarding- 
shall have a special character, that its religious 
associations shall be respected, and above all that it 
shall be felt by all the scholars to be a day of rest, 
refreshment and enjoyment. It must not be passed in 
mere idleness, so one or two lessons of an appropriate kind 
must be devised; but with these there should be required 
as little as may be of irksome effort. The religious services 
should be short, varied, and interesting, and if possible 
such as to enlist the aid of the scholars in the choir. And 
for the rest, leave as much liberty as you can, both as to the 
reading and the occupations of the day. Let the claims of 
the higher life be recognized, and do what you can, rather 
by opportunity and by the general calm and order of the 
day's arrangements, to show that you regard those claims 
as paramount. But do not map out your Sunday scheme 
on the assumption that a day full of devotion or of re~ 



124 Lectures on Teaching, 

ligious reading or exercises can be delightful to a boy^ or 
is appropriate to so early a stage in his moral and spiritual 
progress. Any attempts to enforce upon him the behavior 
and the tastes of older and serious people are apt to de- 
feat their own purpose. They produce a sense not only 
of unreality but of weariness and disgust in those who re- 
bel; or worse stilly they sometimes generate insincerity 
and religious conceit in those who submit. Whatever else 
is done^ let Sunday exercises be such as can be reasonably 
enforced and honestly enjoyed. 

We have to consider now the influence of rewards and 

punishments on the discipline of a school, and 

on the formation of individual character. J^ow 

a child may be stimulated to exertion by very different 

motives : 

(1) By the desire to get something: or by the hope of 
some tangible reward. 

(2) By the d-esire of distinction and the wish to excel 
his fellows. 

(3) By the desire to win approbation from parents or 
teachers. 

(4) By the simple wish to improve, and to do the right 
thing because it is right. 

N"ow here is a whole gamut of motive, and I have put 
first that which is clearly the lowest, and have arranged 
them according to their degrees of worthiness. You may 
feel that so long as you can get right conduct and intel- 
lectual exertion you will be well content, whichever of 
these motives prevails. But at the same time you are con- 
scious that it is a much nobler result of your discipline 
to get them from the last motive than from any one of 
the others. For the first has an element in it of selfishness 
and covetousness, the second is nearly akin to vanity, and 
even the third is not perfectly pure. And one rule of 



Discipline. 125 

action will be anticipated at once by all who follow me in 
this classification of motive forces. Never appeal to the 
lower form of inducement if you can make the higher 
suffice. But it is notorious that we do appeal very much 
in England to the hope of reward. Our whole educational 
j^lans both for boys and for men are pervaded through and 
through with the prize system. We have rewards^ ex- 
hibitions, money prizes, scholarships, fellowships — an 
elaborate system of bribery, by which we try to stimulate 
ambition and to foster excellence. A recent traveller in 
England, Dr. Wiese, the late director of public instruction 
in Prussia, a man of keen insight, and strongely predis- 
posed to admire British institutions, expresses great sur- 
prise at this. " Of all the contrasts which the English 
mode of thinking and acting shows, none has appeared to 
me so striking and contradictory as the fact that a nation 
which has so great and sacred a sense of duty makes no use 
of that idea in the school education of the young. It has 
rather allowed it to become the custom, and it is an evil 
custom, to regard the prospect of reward and honor as the 
chief impulse to industry and exertion." This is to be 
found, he goes on to say, at all stages of instruction from 
the University to the Elementary School. Prizes and 
medals are given not only for progress in learning but also 
for good conduct. " If any one in England wishes to 
benefit an institution, the first thing always is to found 
prizes and scholarships, which in this way have enormously 
increased in some schools.'^ And he then expresses his 
amazement not only at the large proportion of scholars who 
at a breaking-up day are found to have been couronnes or 
rewarded in some way, but at the heap of gift-books 
which often falls to the lot of a single scholar. N'ow Dr. 
Wiese has here hit an undoubtedly weak point in our 
English education. We use rewards somewhat lavishly. 



126 Lectures on Teaching. 

We rely on them too much, as furnishing the motive 
to excellence, and we thus do not give a fair chance 
to the development of purer and nobler motives. There 
are many reasons for this. I have seen schools in which 
prizes were numerous and costly, out of all proportion 
to the merits of the scholars, and have been told that 
the parents expected it, that they would be offended 
if the children brought nothing home at Christmas, 
and that therefore it was necessary under some pretext or 
other that nearly every child should have a prize. Then, 
rich people of kindly instincts who take an interest in a 
school often know no other way of gratifying those in- 
stincts than by establishing a prize. The immediate result 
is so pleasant, the gratification of the receiver of the prize 
is so evident, that it is very hard for the generous giver 
to believe that he has done any harm. But harm is done 

nevertheless. It is here as with charity to the 
be carefully poor, about which so much has been said of 

late. We have no right to gratify our kindly 
sensibilities at the expense of the manliness and strength 
of those whom we wish to benefit. What we see in both 
cases is pleasure, gratitude, very agreeable things to recog- 
nize; but what we do not see is some enervation of the 
character, the silent encouragement of a false and lowered 
estimate of duty. Hence I venture to offer this general 
counsel. Use rewards sparingly. Do not rely on their in- 
fluence too much. Do not give them for ordinary obedi- 
ence, or fair average application; but let them be felt as 
real distinctions; reserve them for cases of special effort 
or excellence; and do not feel bound to accept every gift 
or endowment by which an amiable friend of the school 
may propose to enrich it, unless you see that there is likely 
to be genuine merit to correspond to the gift. 



Discipline. 127 

And in like manner I would urge upon you to economize 
your praise.' People of kindly natures who are And commen- 
mucli in contact with children are apt to be Nation also. 
profuse in little expressions of satisfaction^ ^^ Very well 
done/^ and the like. And if such jDhrases are habitually 
used^ one of two things will happen: either they will be 
taken at their real worth — as amiable but rather feeble 
utterances^ and not true criticisms — in which case the 
teacher's influence will be diminished^ and he will have no 
means left for giving praise when the special occasion for 
it arises; or they will be really valued by the scholars who 
will learn to expect it and to^ rely on it^ and so will lose 
something of their moral strength. It is not good to get a 
habit of relying on constant encouragement. It is a great 
part of the discipline of a school to train a child into doing 
v^hat is right without commendation. Do not therefore 
let a false amiability cause you to waste your praise. 
" Even distinguished merit/' says Mr. Bain, " should not 
always be attended with pseans." And the merit you are 
most concerned to encourage is not cleverness, nor that 
which comes of special natural gifts, but rather the merit 
of conscientious industry and effort. 

By all means let us respect the happiness of children. 
Cheerfulness — joyousness — the atmosphere of Happiness of 
love and of well-ordered liberty — these things children. 
make the heaven in which a little child lives, and in 
which all that is gracious and beautiful in his character 
thrives the best. Let him have as much of this as you can. 
But do not confound it with enjoyments, with what are 
called pleasures, with entertainments, with spectacles, with 
prizes, with things that cost money.^ These are not what 
a child wants. Let us keep them in reserve till the evil 



^ See Jean Paul's Levana oder Erzieh-lehre, 44, 



128 Lectures on Teaching, 

days come when the zest of life needs to be sustained by 
these poor devices. '' Life wonld be very tolerable," said 
Sir George Lewis, " were it not for its pleasures/' A 
schoolmaster cannot accept for himself or his scholars quite 
so cynical a theory as this, but he will none the less admit 
that it is a poor thing even in childhood to be dependent 
for a substantial part of our happiness on treats, on menus 
plaisirs and exceptional gratifications. In the long run 
we should find our chief delight in the ordinary pursuits 
and duties of life rather than in occasional release from 
them. And if school is to provide in this respect a training 
for after-life, it should establish in the young scholar's 
mind happy associations with the duties and employments 
of every day, and not exclusively or even mainly with fetes 
and holidays. 

The saddest part of a schoolmaster's experience lies .in 

the necessity for punishments. It is impossi- 

Pumsiinieiits. -j^^^ -j^^^^ ^^^^ ofi'ences will come. But if we are 

to deal rightly with them when they come, we must first 
understand in what light we ought to look on all sin and 
wrong-doing, especially that of a child. And it is surely 
essential to learn to treat it without harshness, yet without 
levity or indifference; with full recognition of the sanctity 
of the law which has been broken, and yet with sympathy 
for the weakness which led to the breach of it. If we 
begin by viewing faults in this light, we shall be better 
prepared to look this difficult question in the face. 

Now I can conceive three possible purposes which pun- 
ishment may serve. It may (1) be purely re- 
purpies^of tributive or vindictive, and intended to show 
pumsiimeiit. ^-j^^ necessary and righteous connection be- 
tween wrong-dong and suffering- or (2) be purely ex- 
emplary, designed to warn others and to prevent the repeti- 



Discipline. 129 

tioii of the fault; or (3) be designed for the reformation of 
the offender. If yon consider the punishments inflicted 
by the State for the violation of its laws, you will see that 
they are to be defended mainly, almost exclusively, on the 
second of these grounds. It is not simply for the vindica- 
tion of the eternal principles of right and wrong, or for 
avenging evil deeds as such, that the State punishes. Else 
it would deal with the vices which degrade men and dis- 
honor their nature as well as with the crimes which in- 
jure society. Still less is it purely with a view to the 
reformation of the wrong-doer that the community pun- 
ishes its members. Of course when the miscreant is once 
in our hands, and the State assumes the responsibility of 
regulating his life, it is right to make the discipline as 
useful and reformatory as is consistent with due severity 
in the punishment. But this is not the first object. We 
do not keep up our costly and elaborate system of police 
and prisons mainly as an educational institution on behalf 
of that class of persons which least deserves the nation's 
solicitude. The object of the whole system of punishment 
is the protection of society by the prevention of crime. 
'' You are not sent to prison," said a magistrate to a thief, 
'' for picking a pocket, but in order that pockets may not 
be picked." Now it is evident that in this respect the 
School and the State are essentially different. The one 
concerns itself with the act done and its effect on the rights 
and welfare of the community; but the other concerns 
itself chiefly with the doer of the act. That which is to 
the lawgiver only a secondary and subordinate object, is to 
the ruler of the school the first object, the discipline or 
improvement of the offenders. If he punishes, he cannot 
of course keep out of view the moral effect of the punish- 
ment on those who might otherwise be tempted to do 



130 Lectures on Teaching;, 

wrong ; but his main object is to bring the pnpil who has 
strayed^ back again into the right path — the path of obedi- 
ence and of dntj. 

There are two principal forms of punishment — those 
Kinds of which consist in the actual infliction of pain^ 

punishmeiit. qj. -(^j^e deprivation of some enjoyment ; and 
those which derive their force from the fact that they 
are meant to be punishments^ and are known to be so. A 
glance of rebuke^ a word or tone of anger, disgrace or de- 
gradation in the eye of others, loss of office or of confi- 
dence, a low place in a list of marks for merit ; all these 
are forms of punishment belonging to the second class ; 
while detention from play, the loss of holidays or of en- 
tertainments, the withholding of some pleasant ingredient 
from a meal, confinement, the imposition of unpleasant 
tasks, and actual castigation belong to the first class. And 
as we enumerate these, and perhaps think of others which 
our own ingenuity has devised, the first thought which 
occurs to us all, is how happy we should be if we could 
rid ourselves altogether of this kind of duty ; and how 
great an object it is in all good discipline to reduce the 
necessity for punishment to a minimum. All these in- 
struments of torture are in our hands. But it is obvious 
that we should never use the more formidable instrument 
if the less formidable can be made to serve the purpose. 
A¥hile the eye commands respect, the voice is unnecessary ; 
while a gentle rebuke will suffice, the harder tones of in- 
dignation and remonstrance should not be used. And it 
is not till the voice ceases to be obeyed at all, that we 
should resort to severer measures. It is one of the first 
objects of a wise ruler to dispense with the necessity of 
inflicting punishment altogether. But as this cannot al- 
ways be accomplished, one or two principles about its. 
infliction may be usefully kept in view. 



Discipline. 131 

Eemember that secondary punishments intended to 
work upon the sense of shame seldom succeed, xj^g sense 
One reason is that they are so unequal. They of shame, 
fall so differently on different natures. The kind of dis- 
grace which wounds a sensitive child to the quick and 
weakens his self-respect for years^ falls harmless on a 
bolder, harder nature, and gives no pain at all. Many 
very good teachers — though, I am glad to say, a decreasing 
number — think it possible to produce a salutary effect on 
children by humiliating them in the eyes of others. 
Joseph Lancaster, who showed a shrewd insight into 
many matters of education, was curiously unwise in this 
respect. He invented a number of penalties designed ex- 
pressly to make wrong-doing ridiculous. He would tie a 
boy who had broken a rule to one of the pillars of the 
school. He had a pulley fixed in the roof, and a rope and 
a basket, and would put an offender into the basket, and 
let him be drawn up in the sight of the whole school, and 
remain there suspended for its amusement. All such de- 
vices are happily extinct. Fools' caps and stools of re- 
pentance in schools have gone the way of the stocks, of 
the pillory, and of public floggings in the criminal code 
of the nation ; because they were all founded on the same 
vicious principle, of trying to prevent wrong-doing by 
making fun of it, and by exposing the offender to scorn 
and ridicule. You degrade an entire community when you 
enable its members to get any amusement out of the pro- 
cedure of justice, or out of the sufferings of a criminal. 

And I think the use of sarcasm and of ridicule in the 
treatm^ent of children, even when we do not 
punish them, is equally out of harmony with ^^*^^*^^^^- 
a wise and hi^h-minded moral discipline. Some of us 
have a natural gift for satire and for wit ; and it is very 



132 Lectures on Teaching. 

hard to abstain from the exercise of this weapon, whenever 
there is anything in a child's conduct to excite our scorn 
pr sense of the ridiculous. But it is a dangerous weapon 
fievertheless, and we should put a severe restraint upon 
ourselves in the use of it. We must not so treat wrong- 
doing as to weaken the self-respect of the scholar, and to 
make the way to reformation steeper or more thorny than 
it is. 

Is it needful that I should warn any one here against 
Tasks as pun- setting tasks for punishments? I believe, 
isinnents. however, that they are still sometimes used 
for this purpose, and I am astonished to find in a modern 
book containing so much that is wise and philosophical 
as Mr. Bain's Education as a Science, a recognition of 
tasks and impositions as legitimate punishments, because 
" the pain of intellectual ennui is severe to those that have 
no liking for books in any shape." One might have hoped 
that this doctrine at least would ere this have been swept 
away '^ into the limbo large and broad " of obsolete 
lieresies. For what possible effect can be produced by all 
our homilies as to the profit and pleasantness of learning 
if by our own act we admit that a lesson may serve as a 
punishment ? " Because you have disobeyed me you shall 
have a harder or a longer lesson to-night." What is this 
but to reveal that you think learning a lesson is a kind 
of penal servitude ? And this is a thing we should never 
even tacitly admit. First because it ought not to be true, 
and secondly because it will soon become true if you show 
that you believe it to be so. Of course this remark does 
not apply to the making up for some neglect by finishing 
a lesson in play-hours. It is a legitimate thing, if a duty 
of any kind is not performed at the proper time, to insist 
on its finished performance before the scholar begins to 



Discipline. 133 

enjoy his leisure. And in this sense, detention in-doors 
to go over again some neglected lesson, though it looks 
like a punishment, is right and lawful. For it is not the 
lesson in this case which constitutes the punishment, but 
the expenditure of time needed to make up for former 
waste. And this, as you will see, is a very different thing 
from setting the lesson itself as a penalty for wrong-do- 
ing of some other kind. 

And in punishing never let your indignation betray 
you into making your blame too comprehen- 
sive, or out of proportion to the particular act be^^e^cific^ 
which called it forth. Treat every separate ^^^s^^^^^^- 
case of negligence by itself, but do not call a boy a dunce. 
Censure, and if needful punish, a deliberate untruth, but 
do not say to a child, '^ You are a liar.^^ Eegard each sep- 
arate wrong act, as far as you can honestly do so, as ex- 
ceptional, not typical, as one which may be atoned for, 
and the memory of which may be obliterated by a right 
act. To call a child by an evil name is to assume that his 
character is formed, and this happily is not true even of 
your worst scholars. If it were true, what would be more 
discouraging, more fatal to the success of any poor strug- 
gles he may make to set himself right, and to regain your 
approbation ? 

May I add also that punishments should never be in- 
flicted on too many at a time, on a whole class for in- 
stance ? They lose all their force if they are thus indis- 
criminate ; it is very improbable that all the children in 
a group should be equally guilty ; and unless each one 
feels that the loss or disgrace inflicted on him is duly and 
properly proportioned to his own personal fault, he is con- 
scious of injustice, and your punishment fails to produce 
any moral effect. 



134 Lectures on Teaching. 

EoTisseau and Mr. Herbert Spencer have said much, and 

have said it well, about the evil of arbitrary 
The discipline . 

ofconse- punishments which have no intellisjible fit- 
^nences. 

ness or relation to the nature of the fault com- 
mitted. And I strongly recommend every teacher to read 
what is said in Emile, and in the chapter on Moral Edu- 
cation in Mr. Spencer's well-known book. Those authors 
point out that nature punishes faults in a very effective 
way. If one goes too near a fire he is burnt ; if he plays 
with a knife he hurts himself ; and in like manner, if a 
child carelessly loses something belonging to him, he 
should feel the inconvenience of going without it, and 
not have it at once replaced by a kind but injudicious 
parent. If he is unpunctual he should not be waited for 
when any walk or pleasure is to be had, but should be 
left behind ; if he is untidy and makes a litter he should 
be made to gather it up. When in this way the incon- 
venience suffered is seen to be the direct consequence of 
the fault, a child cannot rebel as he could, for example, 
if for doing any one of these things he was sent to bed. 
You eliminate altogether the feeling of personal resent- 
ment and the sense of injustice if you make the punish- 
ment thus, whenever possible, obviously appropriate to the 
fault and logically its sequel. The principle, once seen, 
covers a good many school offences. The obvious punish- 
ment for late coming is late going ; for doing an exercise 
ill is to do it again well ; for wasting the time in school 
is to forfeit some of the hours of leisure ; for all invasion 
of the rights and comforts of others is to find one's own 
privileges or comforts restricted ; for injury to the property 
of others, restitution at one's own cost. And from this point 
of view it will be seen how unsatisfactory is the discipline 
when for telling a lie one has to learn a hundred lines of 



Discipline, 135 

Virgil ; or for confounding the perfect with the pluper- 
fect tense to receive a flogging. In the former cases the 
discipline commends itself to the conscience of the child. 
In the latter his moral sense rebels, and rightly rebels, 
against it. 

But unfortunately for the theory of Eousseau and Mr. 
Spencer, nature does not provide a sure and -^j^yin. 
visible penalty for every offence. Truly I adequate, 
know no more impressive lesson for a child than to show 
him how wrong-doing produces evil consequences ; how 
pitiless and inexorable are the laws in virtue of which all 
sin brings harm and misery with it in the long-run ; how 
intemperance enfeebles the body ; how idleness begets 
poverty ; how the liar is not trusted ; how ignorance 
brings dishonor ; how improvidence breeds crime, and 
leads to loss of character and loss of happiness. And I 
think that the utilitarian philosophers are right in urging 
us to teach in our schools some of the simpler truths of 
economic science, the laws of industrial and social life, 
which will enable the scholars thus to trace out the con- 
nection between conduct and well-being, between all faults 
and their natural penalties. But valuable as such teach- 
ing is, experience proves to us that it is wholly inadequate 
as a theory of moral government either for a school or for 
a State. 

The reasons why it is inadequate are not the same in 
the two cases. A civil ruler cannot rely on the 
discipline of natural consequences, because fe^vere^^^^* 
they are too remote and too dimly seen to tSe^purpose 
serve as effective deterrents. It needs an ef- °*^^*^^®- 
fort of imagination, of which a criminal is generally in- 
capable, to realize such consequences at all. And in fact, 
you cannot demonstrate to his satisfaction that any con- 



136 Lectures on Teaching. 

sequences which he dreads will certainly occur. You take 
a thief and explain to him that honesty is conducive to 
the public welfare. But in most cases he knows that as 
well as you. You prove to him that nine thieves out of 
ten are detected and come to ultimate ruin. Your de- 
monstration fails to affect him. Why ? Because he means 
to be the tenth. He knows that consequences are some- 
times avoided, and he thinks he will be skilful enough to 
avoid them. And as to your proof that dishonest acts will 
bring about slow deterioration of character and certain 
loss of friends, of position, and of general esteem, the man 
with criminal tendencies who is subject to strong temp- 
tation is generally inaccessible to such considerations^; and 
society for its own protection is justified in •interposing 
with its artificial penalties, which are sharper and more 
effective. 

And while the State cannot rely wholly on natural pun- 
Because too ishments, because for her purpose they are too 
thS?urpose lig^^t, the parent or the teacher has exactly the 
of a school. opposite reason for not depending upon them. 
They are for his purpose far too severe. You want by 
timely interposition with a small arbitrary punishment to 
save him from the more cruel Nemesis which Nature has 
provided for wrong-doing. He is, it may be, inclined to 
gluttony, and you know that if you leave him alone Na- 
ture will avenge the violation of her laws by enfeebling 
his constitution and depriving him prematurely of health 
and vigor. But because you are chiefly concerned with the 
formation of his character, this is precisely the penalty 
you wish to avoid ; and you subject him to some painful 
restraint, because you wish to substitute a light penalty 
for a heavy one. You see a man rushing towards a preci- 



Discipline. 137 

pice, and you knock him down. What justifies this act 

of violence ? Nothing, except that by the infliction of a 

small and wholly arbitrary injury, you have helped him to 

escape from the greater injury which w^ould have been the 

natural penalty of his own imprudence. 

It is a familiar conclusion from experience that in a 

school, as in a State, it is the certainty rather 

' ' "^ Thecer- 

than the severity of a punishment which has taintynot 

^ the severity 

a deterrino^ effect. If an offender could feel ofapunish- 

^ ment deters. 
that detection was absolutely certain, the dread 

of consequences, whether natural or arbitrary, would be 
much more potent. " Because," said Solomon, " sentence 
against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore 
the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do 
evil." That was his experience as an administrator. As a 
matter of fact, every child know^s that though lying is 
wrong, there are lies which serve their purpose and are 
never found out ; that there are cases in which dishonesty 
seems for a time at least to be good policy ; and it is the 
knowledge of these and the like facts which will always 
leave something more to be desired, when you are seeking 
to deter children from evil, by the utilitarian method of 
tracing out that evil to its consequences. And what is 
that something ? I believe it to lie in the constant refer- 
ence of moral questions to higher considerations than 
those of expediency and of results — ^to the inward sense 
of right and of moral fitness, to the sentiment of honor 
'^ which feels," as Burke finely says, '' a stain like a 
wound," to a perception of the beauty of holiness, to the 
desire to do what our heavenly Father meant us to do and 
to be what he fitted us to be, whether happiness and pros- 
perity come of it or not. 



.138 Lectures on Teaching. 

And as you succeed in cultivating the sentiment of 
honor and the habit of referring school merits 
Miid?of pun- and offences to the standard of what is in itself 
ishment. right and fitting, and worthy of your scholar's 

best self, it will come to pass that your most effective pun- 
ishments — indeed almost your only punishments — will 
consist in the loss of honor. Bad marks, a low place in the 
class, the withholding of office and responsibility, and of 
all signs of esteem and confidence, — these after all fulfil 
in the best way the two most important conditions of all 
right punishment. For there is nothing arbitrary or ca- 
pricious about them, since they are the natural and appro- 
priate consequences of the faults to which they pertain. 
And at the same time they are eminently reformatory; for 
they indicate , clearly the way to repentance and improve- 
ment. So my counsel to all schoolmasters is : Look in this 
direction for the punishments which you may lawfully 
and wisely use : and be dissatisfied with yourself and with 
your own plan of discipline so long as you find it needful 
to employ any others. 

Yet we must not omit a brief reference to corporal pun- 
Corporai ishment, the ultima ratio of the puzzled and 

punisiimeiit. "baffled schoolmastcr when all other means fail. 
Shall we begin by denouncing it altogether ? I think not. 
The punishment of the body for certain offences is Nature's 
way of discipline, and it is not necessarily degrading to 
young children, nor unsuited to the imperfect state of their 
mental and moral development. Arnold, though I suspect 
that his views on this subject would have altered in later 
years, was not wholly wrong when he vindicated flogging in 
certain extreme cases. " The proud notion of independence 
and dignity which revolts at the idea of personal chastise- 
ment is not reasonable and is certainly not Christian," he 



Discipline. 139 

said. After all it is sin which degrades and not the punish- 
ment of it. And if there be certain forms of vice which can 
be cured more readily by the infliction of such cliastise- 
ment than by any other means, the chastisement will need 
no other vindication. And yet wliile allowing full weight 
to this view of the case, I am convinced that corporal 
punishment is almost wholly unnecessary, that it does more 
harm, than good, and that in just the proportion in which 
teachers understand their business they will learn to dis- 
pense with it. In boarding schools it seems to me wholly 
indefensible; for there, where the whole discipline of the 
life and the control of leisure is in the teacher^s hands, 
there are many other ways open to him of imposing pen- 
alties. And there is scarcely less necessity for it in day 
schools. The largest and one of the best day schools I 
ever examined, where the whole tone of the discipline is 
singularly high, manly, and cheerful, has never once dur- 
ing its whole history had a case of corporal punishment. 
But the master, when I was reporting on the school, begged 
me not to mention this fact. " I do not mean to use it,^' 
he said, " but I do not want it to be in the power of the 
public or the parents to say I am precluded from using it. 
Every boy here knows that it is within my discretion, and 
that if a very grave or exceptional fault occurred I might 
exercise that discretion." I believe that to be the true 
attitude for all teachers to assume. They should not have 
their discretion narrowed by any outward law, but they 
should impose a severe law on themselves. And in carry- 
ing it out I venture to make two or three suggestions only: 
(1) Never inflict corporal chastisement for intellectual 
faults; for stupidity or ignorance. Eeserve is exclusively 
for vices, for something morally degrading. (2) Never in- 
flict it while under the influence of heat or passion. (3) 



140 Lectures on Teaching, 

Never permit an assistant or an elder scholar to inflict it 
in any circumstances. (4) Do not let any instrument of 
punishment be included as part of the school furniture, 
and as an object of familiar sight, or flourished about as 
a symbol of authority. (5) Do not strike with the hand. 

On this whole subject of the mode and manner of in- 
flicting punishment you will find some useful hints in 
Jeremy Bentham^s Clirestomathia, which I advise every 
teacher to read. 
But we return finally to this consideration. The great 

triumph of school discipline is to do without 
pensewith punishments altogether. And to this end it 

is essential that we should watch those forms 
of offence, which occur oftenest, and see if by some better 
arrangements of our own, temptation to wrong may be 
diminished and offences prevented. If your government 
is felt to be based on high principles, to be vigilant and 
entirely just, to be strict without being severe, to have no 
element of caprice or fitfulness in it; if the public opinion 
of the school is so formed that a scholar is unpopular who 
does wrong, you will find not only that all the more de- 
grading forms of personal chastisement are unnecessary, 
but that the need of punishment in any form will steadily 
disappear. 



Learning and Remembering, 141 



V. LEARNING AND REMEMBERHSTG. 

Theee is no one department of educational work in 
which the difference between skilled and un- 
skilled teaching is so manifest as in the view rufesmustte 
which is taken of the faculty of memory, the depeSdent^on 
mode of training it, and the uses to which dif- P^^^o^^P^y- 
ferent teachers seek to put it. We are here at the meeting 
point of practice and of speculative psychology; and it is 
impossible for you or me to arrive at entirely right rules 
of action in reference to this subject unless our attention 
is also directed to the nature of the intellectual process 
which we call remembering, and to the laws which deter- 
mine its action. I shall, however, abstain from encroach- 
ing on the domain of my successor here, whose duty it 
will be to expound to you the philosophy of memory. But 
it may be well to say that this line of inquiry will prove 
very fruitful, and that some study of what Locke, Reid, 
Dr. Thomas Brown, and Professor Bain have said on the 
laws of association; of what Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Mauds- 
ley have said respecting the physical basis of memory; and 
of the v/ise and practical distinction which Mr. Latham in 
his book on Examinations has drawn between what he 
calls respectively the " portative," the " analytical," the 
" assimilative," and the ^^ index " memory would be of 
great value in forming your own judgment upon it. 

For my present purpose it must suffice to mention one 
or two very simple truths as a basis for the few 
practical rules which we hope to arrive at on of mental 

, . . sug^gfestion. 

this important matter. By a wonderful process, 

which is sometimes called mental suggestion or association, 



142 Lectures on Teaching. 

we find that every thought and action in our life links itself 
with some other thought or action. No piece of mental 
or spiritual experience is thoroughly isolated. No act, 
even of sensible perception, takes place without associating 
itself with some previous thought, or suggesting a new one. 
When we come to analyze these phenomena we find that 
there are, roughly distinguishable, two classes of associa- 
tions. We may, when we are told of a fact, think also of 
the reason or consequence of that fact; and two distinct 
ideas may come before our minds together, because we. 
perceive the logical nexus which unites them. Thus, the 
thought of a good vintage in France suggests to me that 
claret may be cheaper; the history of Caxton and the early 
printers may make me think of the revival of learning; 
heavy war expenditures suggests national debt; bad gov- 
ernment suggests revolution. In like manner a particu- 
lar problem in Euclid reminds me of the axioms and postu- 
lates on which its solution depends; and a solecism in 
speech makes me think of the grammatical rule which has 
been violated. In all these cases the character of the asso- 
ciations which are formed, and the ease with which they 
may hereafter be recalled together, depend on the degree 
in which the judgment and the reflective power have been 
cultivated on the subjects to which they relate. 

But besides these logical and natural associations, as 
we may call them, there are many others which are purely 
arbitrary, in which there is no special appropriateness in 
the connection formed. Such are the associations between 
names and persons, between dates and facts, between 
words and ideas, between weights or measures and the 
figures representing their ratios, between contemporaneous 
events in different countries. Now in all these cases no 
judgment or reflection will help me to strengthen the asso- 



Learning and Rememhering, 143 

elation. If the link between the things thus related exists 
at all it must be forged by some mechanical process. I 
am told that Columbus discovered America in 1492^ but 
there is no reason in the world which my understanding 
can recognize why the date should not have been 1452. 
The books tell me that there are 5J yds. in a pole^ and I 
think of the word pole and these figures together^ but I do 
not establish this association by any rational process. It is 
established, if at all, by some other means. The suggestion 
is one of words rather than of thoughts. 

Now, if we will consider it, the main differences in the 
mental calibre and character of men depend 
largely upon the sort of ideas which habitually Fo^rms of* 
or most readily coalesce in their minds. To ^^so^^^^tions. 
a man of strong or lofty imagination a very common inci- 
dent may suggest some hidden moral analogies, or far- 
reaching truth: 

" To him the meanest flower that blows doth give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

And such a man we call a poet. In the case of another 
man, every striking scene in the phantasmagoria of life 
sets him reflecting on its antecedents and consequences; 
and such a man has the philosophic temper, he is the rea- 
soner, the moralist, the sage. To a third the sound of a 
word suggests only some grotesque simile, some remote al- 
lusion, some idea, which though essentially different, has a 
superficial resemblance. And such a person is the man of 
fancy or of wit. But when on hearing a word, or being 
reminded of a scene, the mind at once passes to the other 
words qr actions which were linked with it when we recog- 
nized it at first; w^hen it simply recalls a certain group of 
words or thoughts in the same sequence as that in which 



144 Lectures on Teaching. 

they were before presented ; then we say the man has 

a good memory. He can in fact reproduce readily former 

associations, whether logical or not. 

Consider for a moment the process which goes on when 

we try to remember a fact. You ask me the 
The process 
of remember- name of the statesman who tried so hard to 

set poor Louis XVI.^s finances in order, and I 
cannot remember it. Of course, if I knew the first letter 
of the name, that would give me a clue, and I should wait 
till that initial suggested to me a number of names, should 
fasten with special attention on likely names, and dismiss 
as fast as I could other names, which, though beginning 
with the same letter, were not, I know, what were wanted. 
But I do not remember the initial. So I let my mind 
dwell for a moment on Louis XVI. As I do so, the names 
of Calonne, of La Fayette, even of Burke and Pitt occur to 
me. They are not what I want, and I refuse to let my 
mind dwell on them. I think of Madame de Stael. Stop, 
she was the daughter of the statesman whose name I seek. 
Of Gribbon: that reminds me that he had sought the same 
lady in marriage. Then Geneva and Lausanne and Ferney 
and Voltaire, all names which are connected, come rapidly 
through my mind, and in the midst of them Necker^s 
name is suggested, and I fasten on it at once. It is what I 
wanted. 

Now you will observe here that it is not by any con- 
scious act that I have remembered this name. I cannot be 
said to have found it, or dug it up from the stores of my 
memory. These metaphors are very misleading. What 
T have done is simply this: I have waited for the laws of 
association to operate, and for the wonderful spontaneous 
power of mental suggestion to help me. An effort of 
will served to bring my attention to bear on those suggeg- 



Learning and Rememhering, 145 

tions which.^ as they emerged^ seemed most hopeful; I 
withdrew my attention from all unpromising trains of 
association^ and in due time the particular name of which 
I was in search came back. If I had had a better memory 
it would have come back sooner, or with less effort. 

Now this faculty of remembering is one which we con- 
stantly want to use in our teaching. Wliat would be the 
worth of any teaching without it ? We desire of course 
to stimulate the power of fresh thought, to make children 
observers, reasoners, thinkers. But the first thing we de- 
mand of them is that they should recollect what we teach. 
If we have been at the pains to link together two things, 
say a word and its meaning, a fact and a date, or two 
thoughts by way of comparison or contrast, we want the 
process of linking them to be so effective, that whenever 
afterwards the one is presented to the mind, the other shall 
come with it. Unless the associations of thought and 
words which we seek to establish are permanent, there is 
imperfect memory; and if the memory is imperfect, our 
labor is lost. 

So it is obvious that we ought to inquire into the con- 
ditions which give permanence to associations Mo^gsofes- 
once brought before the mind. How are we to -^Ij^a^eift 
fix them ? There are two obvious ways : associations. 

The first of them is that of frequent repetition. We 
learn to fix many pairs of associated words or (d Freatient 
ideas together, not because we try to do so, but '■^^^*^^°"* 
simply because circumstances bring them constantly before 
us in juxtaposition.! Thus we learn the names of the 



^ " That which has existed with any completeness in conscious- 
ness leaves behind it, after its disappearance therefrom^ in the 
mind or brain, a functional disposition to its reproduction or re- 
appearance in consciousness at some future time. Of no mental act 



146 Lectures on Teaching. 

people about us, the sequence of words in familiar texts 
and verses, the collocation of objects in the houses and 
streets we see every day. Suggest any one of these to the 
mind, and instantly those which are related to it by mere 
contiguity come up before us in connection whether we 
care to recall them or not. I might to-day by simply re- 
iterating the same sentence fifty times make such an im- 
pression on your mind that you would never forget it. The 
effect of mere frequency of repetition, in fastening together 
even the most incongruous associations, is so familiar to 
you that it needs no further illustration. 

The second condition of remembering is the interest or 

sympathy with which we ree^ard the things 
(2) Interest ^ ^.^\ ^ ^ , ,° -rn t i 

in the tMng: associated. I 2:0 to hear a lecture on iLnsrlish 
learned. ^ ° 

Literature, and incidentally there are men- 
tioned in the course of it two facts, the one that Phineas 
Fletcher wrote the Purple Island, the other that James 
Thomson wrote Eule Britannia in a mask of his called 
Alfred. Well, it probably happens that the one fact inter- 



can we say that it is ' writ in water.' Something remains from it 
whereby its recurrence is facilitated. Every impression of sense 
upon the brain, every current of molecular activity from one to 
another part of the brain, every cerebral reaction which passes into 
movement, leaves behind it some modification of the nerve-elements 
concerned in its function, some after-effect, or, so to speak, mem- 
ory of itself in them, which renders its reproduction an easier 
matter, the more easy the more often it has been repeated^ and 
makes it impossible to say that, however trivial, it shall not in 
some circumstances recur. Let the excitation take place in one of 
two nerve-cells lying side by side, and between which there was 
not originally any specific difference, there will be ever afterwards 
a difference between them. This physiological process, whatever 
be its nature, is the physical basis of memory, and it is the founda- 
tion of our mental functions." — Dr. Maudsley. 



Learning and Remembering . 147 

ests me and the other does not. I never heard of Fletcher 
before, and have not cared to inquire what ' the Purple 
Island meant. But I have often heard Rule Britannia 
sung, and perhaps it never occurred to me to inquire who 
wrote it. That a rather vain-glorious, noisy, patriotic 
scng should have been written by James Thomson, whose 
name I have been accustomed to associate with pastoral 
musings, and sweet luxurious fancies about the Castle of 
Indolence, comes to me as a surprise. A month later, it is 
found that I have forgotten all about the Purple Island, 
but I remember vividly the origin of Rule Britannia. And 
the reason is plain. It is true, I heard both facts once 
only. But then the one fact excited my attention and 
interest, and the other did not; and this accounts for the 
difference. 

Fow the obvious conclusion from this is, that if you 
want to have a thing remembered you may do it in either 
of two ways. You may fasten it by dint of frequent repeti- 
tion into the memory of one who does not care to retain it; 
or you may get the thing remembered simply by exciting 
in your pupil a strong wish to remember it. And the labor 
involved in the two processes may be stated in inverse pro- 
portion: the more you use the one expedient the less you 
vv^ant of the other. The act of remembering may be a 
mechanical, almost an automatic, process, or it may be an 
intelligent process. But in just the proportion in which 
you make it intelligent it ceases to be mechanical, and 
conversely. Every emotion of sympathy and interest you 
can awaken will render less necessary the wearisome joy- 
less process of learning a task by heart. Let it be kept 
in your own view, and in that of your pupils, that the first 
condition of easy remembering is that we care to remem- 
ber, that if we have a bad memory it is not nature's fault, 



148 Lectures on Teaching. 

but it is simply because we do not put sufficient force of 
will into ttie'act of tying together the ideas which we pro- 
pose to keep associated. Promise children some pleasure, 
and they will find no difficulty in remembering it. To say 
that we do not recollect a thing is simply to say that we 
did not pay sufficiently close attention to it when it was 
first brought before our minds. 

And what is the kind of memory we want most to cul- 
tivate ? Is it the memory of words, or of the 
Verbal and "^ 

rational things and facts represented by those words ? 

memory. ° ^ \ 

is it the concrete memory which carries accur- 
ate impressions of visual pictures or of sounds, or is it the 
abstract memory which retains the gist and meaning of 
what has been heard and seen ? No doubt it is good to 
secure each of these kinds of power. Some people who are 
keen at remembering the relations between events, and the 
substance of what they hear, have a difficulty in remember- 
ing mere names and words. But if we were to choose, and 
could only secure one, we should prefer to have the mem- 
ory for things their causes, effects, and mutual relations, 
rather than the power of mere verbal reminiscence. In 
schools, however, we want both, and it is a great point in 
education to know when to cultivate the one, and when to 
aim at the other. If you hear a pupil demonstrate a pro- 
position in Euclid, you want memory of course, but it is 
the memory of a logical sequence, and not of particular 
words. In fact, if you have any reason to suspect that he 
has learned it by heart, you at once change A, B, C on 
the diagram to X, Y, Z, or adopt some other device to 
baffle him. For to turn what is meant as a discipline in 
ratiocination into an exercise of purely verbal memory de- 
stroys the whole value of the lesson, and makes nonsense 
of it. And if you have been given a lesson on History, and 



Learning and Remembering, 149 

have described say the period of the English Revolution— 
the attempt at the dispensing power, the trial of the seven 
bishops, the bigotry of James II. and the final catastrophe: 
you want all these facts to be linked together in their due 
correlation as causes and effects ; and when they are repro- 
duced to come up again as facts, in words supplied by your 
pupil and representing his own thoughts, not in the par- 
ticular words which you happened to use in teaching. In 
these cases Montaigne's aphorism applies with special force, 
BavoiT 'par coeur 71' est pas savoir. Nothing would be gained, 
but much would be lost, if instead of requiring him thus 
to recall the events in his own way, you set him to learn 
by heart some sentences from a history book in which 
those facts were summarized. The associations you want 
to fix in the memory here are of events, not of words or 
phrases. 

Are there then no occasions on which it is wise and de- 
sirable to establish verbal associations and to 
require them to be committed to memory, or heSt.'wiien 
to use a common expression, to be learned by i^g^itimate. 
heart ? Undoubtedly there are. Let us look at them. 

(1) There are in arithmetic and in all the exact sciences 
certain formulas which are frequently in use, which have 
constantly to be referred to, and which we want to use at 
a moment's notice. The multiplication table, for example. 
7 times 9 make 63. The association between these 
figures is apparently arbitrary. Eeflection and reasoning 
would not help me much to know that they do not make 
53 ; and when I am working a problem in which the fact 
is available, I do not want to reason or reflect at all. The 
two figures should suggest 63 instantaneously by a me- 
chanical process, and without a moment's thought. So 
it is good to know that the relation of the diameter to the 



150 Lectures on Teaching, 

circumference of a circle is expressed by the figures 1 and 
3.14159, because tliis fact is often wanted in working out 
problems in mensuration, and furnishes a key to the rapid 
estimation of the sizes of familiar things. In the case of 
each of these terse and fruitful formulae, we observe that 
there is one thing right and everything else is wrong ; 
there should be no mistake at all in our minds in regard 
to the exact truth ; and the frequency with which the 
formula becomes of use fully justifies us in the labor of 
committing it to memory. 

(2) There are some things which we want to remember 
in substance, but which are best remembered in one par- 
ticular form. Geometrical definitions and axioms, and 
some rules in Latin syntax, are of this kind. They have 
been carefully reduced to the simplest form of expression, 
it is specially necessary that they should be applied with 
perfect accuracy, and we therefore do well to have them 
in our mind in one fixed and concise form. 

(3) Again, there are some things which deserve to be 
remembered as much on account of the special form they 
assume as on that of the truths they embody. If the lan- 
guage in which a truth is conveyed has any special au- 
thorit}^, any historic significance, or any poetical beauty, 
the language itself becomes a thing worth appropriating, 
over and above the thoughts conveyed in that language. 
So. verses of poetry, passages from great writers and ora- 
tors, formularies of faith, wise maxims in which, as Lord 
Russell said, the wisdom of many has been fixed and con- 
centrated by the wit of one — all these are worth learning 
by heart. The memory is enriched by a store of strong 
thoughts or of graceful expressions ; — a great and preg- 
nant passage from Shakespeare, a few fervid and finished 
sentences from an oration of Burke, a piece of jewelled 



Learning and Remembering. 151 

eloquence from one of Jeremy Taylor^s sermons, a quaint 
aphorism from old Fuller, a sweet restful poem by Words- 
worth, or some devout spiritual utterance of George Her- 
bert or Keble, has a preciousness of its own which depends 
rather on its artistic excellence as a specimen of language, 
than on its value as a statement of truth. And it is this 
very artistic excellence which gives it its special claim to 
lie garnered in the store-house of memory. The possessor 
of such a store has a resource in hours of weariness or 
dulness, when thoughts are sluggish and imagination is 
weak. He goes back and finds that by recalling such utter- 
ances his thoughts are stimulated and his emotions en- 
nobled.^ But this would not happen if the words them- 
selves were not felt to have a fitness and beauty of their 
own. 

There is therefore a right use and a wrong use of what 
I have for my present purpose called by the rather un- 
scientific name of the "verbal memory," or what is gen- 
erally known as " learning by heart." This, too, is not a 
felicitous phrase, for of all conceivable employments for 
the human understanding, this kind of task work has the 
least " heart " in it. I^o doubt many teachers have been 
accustomed to rely too much on the power of remember- 
ing words. It is the easiest of all forms of school-keeping 
to say " Go and learn that lesson, and then come and say 
it to me ; " and accordingly, setting tasks to be learned by 
heart is the chief, almost the only, resource of teachers 
who cannot teach and are content to be mere pedagogic 
machines. But then the opposite of wrong is not always 



^ " What we want for ready use is a well-turned sentence form, 
or a suitable designation or phrase for some meaning that we are 
at a loss to render." — Bain. 



152 Lectures on Teaching, 

right ; and in the reaction against a system which relied 
wholly on the memory and never appealed to the judg- 
ment;, we may very easily make another mistake equally 
great by discrediting and nndervalning the memory^, by 
treating it as the Cinderella in the household of the hu- 
man faculties, useful merely as a drudge. 

We are, I hope, prepared now to come to a true con- 
clusion as to the right use of this great edu- 
cipietobe cational instrument. And this is the conclu- 
sion : When the object is to have thoughts, 
facts, reasonings reproduced, seek to have them repro- 
duced in the pupil's own words. Do not set the faculty 
of mere verbal memory to work. But when the words 
themselves in which a fact is embodied have some special 
fitness or beauty of their own, when they represent some 
scientific datum or central truth, which could not other- 
wise be so well expressed, then see that the form as well 
as the substance of the expression is learned by heart. 

And, having once determined that this is worth doing, 
Thorough- ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ thoroughly done. It is of no 
ness. value to le^rn a thing by heart unless it is 

learned so thoroughly that it can be recalled without the 
least mistake and at a moment's notice. Other lessons, 
in which the understanding is chiefly concerned, may be 
only partially successful, and yet be of some use. A les- 
son half understood is better than no lesson at all. But a 
memoriter lesson half learned — said with a few prompt- 
ings, and blundered through just well enough to escape 
serious blame — is sure to be forgotten directly afterwards, 
and simply comes to nothing. Yes, it does come to some- 
thing. It leaves behind it a sense of wasted time and a 
disgust for the whole subject to which it relates. That is 
all.. 



Learning and Remembering. 153 

Grant also that, for some such good reason as I have 
named, you determine to set certain lessons 
to be learned by hearty it is well to give pupils mit to mem- 
a hint as to the conditions under which the 
memory lays hold of a lesson best. Sitting down imme- 
diately after a lesson to commit a task to memory is a bad 
plan^ for the mind is not then in its most receptive state. 
All persons do not commit tasks to memory under pre- 
cisely the same conditions^ so no universal rule can be 
laid down. To many^ the morning when the mind is fresh 
is the best time. As a rule, the cerebral activity is said 
to be at its height within two or three hours after the 
first meal of the day. Many find the easiest way of learn- 
ing by heart is to con over the lesson just before going to 
bed, and then they discover that in the morning it all 
comes to them with much greater clearness. Some 
philosophical writers have pointed out that there is such 
a thing as unconscious cerebration, a process of mind go- 
ing on in sleep, and at other times when we are not con- 
scious, whereby impressions made before are not only 
fixed, but even more clearly apprehended. We cannot 
now discuss this theory ; but it is certain that to many 
minds the expedient of learning a thing over night is 
found exceedingly helpful in economizing the conscious 
effort of the brain, and causes the thing you want to re- 
member to come up with curious vividness in the morn- 
ing.i 

^ " Whatever the organic process in the brain, it takes place, like 
the action of other elements of the body, quite out of the reach 
of consciousness. We are not aware how our general and abstract 
ideas are formed; the due material is consciously supplied, and 
there is an unconscious elaboration of the result. Mental de- 
velopment thus represents a sort of nutrition and organization; or 



154 Lectures on Teaching, 

Again, a lesson learned in school, or a book read and 
dismissed from the mind the moment the read- 
iIe^suppie-° ^■'^S is <^^6^ ^^ ^^6 particular purpose is served, 
Snectioif i^ ^^^^ ^P^ ^^ ^^ forgotten, and often needs 
to be learned over again. But a lesson which 
is turned round and round in the mind again, and made 
the subject of rumination, even for a few minutes, is sure 
to become part of the permanent furniture of the mind. 
We do not want to let school-work encroach on the whole 
domain of life, and haunt a thoughtful scholar in all his 
hours of leisure. But we may not forget that the old way 
in which the Jews were exhorted to teach their children 
the commandments of the Lord in ages when there 
were no books, was a true way. " Thou shalt teach them 
diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when 
thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the 
way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." 
Whatever we make a subject of reflection at odd times, 
when the thoughts are at leisure, is sure to be remem- 
bered. If a scholar can only be trained to the habit of 

as Milton aptly says of the opinions of good men, that they are 
truth in the making, so we may truly say of the formation of our 
general and complex ideas, that it is mind in the making. When 
the individual brain is a well-constituted one and has been duly 
cultivated, the results of its latent activity, rising into conscious- 
ness suddenly, sometimes seem like intuitions; they are strange 
and startling as the products of a dream ofttimes are to the person 
who has actually produced them. Hence it was no extravagant 
fancy in Plato to look upon them as reminiscences of a previous 
higher existence. His brain was a brain of the highest order, and 
the results of its unconscious activity, as they flashed into con- 
sciousness, would show like revelations, and might well seem 
intuitions of a higher life quite beyond the reach of present will." 
— Dr. Carpenter. 



Learning and Remembering. 155 

giving ten minutes a day, in a walk, or in a quiet evening, 

to asking himself, " What have I learned, and why have I 

learned it ? '^ and to the act of trying to recall it, and to 

think out some illustration of it, he is sure to make great 

and true progress. 

There is one very common excuse often urged by those 

who make an excessive use of task-work in 

teachins^. You complain of their setting poor strengthened 
r++i # I.- ^ by exercise. 

scrappy little passages ot grammar, history, or 

geography to be learned by heart. You point out to them 
that sentences of this kind would be worthless even to an 
educated man. And the answer is, they are useful because 
they strengthen the memory. That is quite true. So it 
would strengthen my memory if I learned the leading ar- 
ticle of this morning's Times by heart, or the names of all 
the Senior Wranglers in regular order from the beginning 
of the century. Moreover it is just conceivable that some 
day these acquisitions would turn out to be of value. In 
like manner, it would strengthen the muscles of a man^s 
arm if he were on every alternate morning to dig a hole 
in his garden, and on the second morning regularly and 
laboriously fill it up again. But it is better perhaps that 
he should get this exercise in digging up something that 
needs to be dug. The truth is that life is not long enough, 
and our faculties are not potent enough, to justify us in 
strengthening the memory by learning what is not worth 
remembering. You may get the same discipline from 
your faculties by learning something which has a value of 
its own ; and unless what you propose to lay up in store 
in a child's mind has such real value, and is of such a kind 
that you yourself would find it fruitful and well worth 
possessing in after-life, the use you mean to make of the 
faculty is illegitimate and unwise. w 



156 Lectures on Teaching. 

Now in the light of the principles thus laid down let 

me ask myself one or two questions. Shall I 
Tests of 
right and learn by heart a list of the prepositions which 

of memory goYcrn a dative, and of the prepositions which 
govern an ablative, in Latin ? Yes. For these 
are idiomatic laws which are essential to me in Latin com- 
position as well as in translation : they are largely ar- 
bitrary, and I could not recall them easily by any effort 
of reflection. Shall I learn the definitions of the parts 
of speech given by grammarians ? No. " An article is 
a word placed before a noun to show the extent of its 
meaning." If I did not know what an article is without 
the help of this definition, I should never tell it by means 
of it. Moreover, there are a good many other ways of de- 
fining parts of speech quite as good as those in any given 
grammar, and so long as I know thoroughly the dis- 
tinction itself, the more varied is the form in which I 
can define it the better. Shall I learn the number of yards 
in a mile, the formula for the .square of (a-|-&), or the 
trigonometrical expression for the area of a triangle in 
terms of its sides ? Yes. For these are central and most 
serviceable truths, constantly wanted in the solution of 
problems, and often wanted in a hurry. Will it be well 
to learn the logarithms of all numbers up to 100, the num- 
ber of pints in a hogshead, or the number of inches in- a 
Flemish ell ? No, I think I will not encumber my mem- 
ory with facts so seldom wanted, so little known outside 
of a school-room, and so very easy to find, if by chance 
there should be any occasional need for them. Shall I 
set my pupils to learn by heart an extract from Scott's 
Marmion ? Well, I think not. For it is not likely «to 
have any unity of its own. It is a fragment of a longer 
narrative, and is unintelligible without the rest ; and 



Learning and Remembering, 157 

since it is unreasonable to expect that the rest will be re- 
membered, the fragment will soon drop ont of recollec- 
tion altogether. Shall I set him to learn part of Gold- 
smith's Traveller, or Gray's Elegy, or Wordsworth's 
Ode on Immortality ? Yes. For every couplet here is 
a picture or thought in itself. Any one line will help to 
recall the lines related to it ; and even if it does not do 
so, it has a value and suggestiveness of its own. Shall I 
learn the dates of the English kings, the latitude of Lon- 
don, and, at least approximately, the size of this island, 
and the population of its five or six largest towns ? Yes, 
because England is my home, because it interests me more 
than any other place in the world, and because all these 
facts will be useful as fixed points of comparison round 
which all my constantly increasing acquaintance with it 
and its history, and with other places, will cluster and ar- 
range itself. Shall I learn the dates of the Popes, a list 
of the departments of France, the figures w^hich give me 
the lengt-h of the Mississippi, or the latitude and longi- 
tude of Timbuctoo ? Ko. I think I would rather not 
know these things. I should like to know where the book 
is where I can find them on the rare occasions on which I 
may want them, and I should also like to know how to con- 
sult it. What Mr. Latham calls the Index memory is all 
I want here, the knowledge of where to look for what I 
want, and how to look for it. But as to carrying such, 
lumber about as part of my mental furniture through 
life, I will certainly not do it, unless you compel me ; and 
if you force me to learn it, I will try to forget it as soon 
as I am out of your reach. Shall I learn the Creed, the 
Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments by heart ? 
Well — assuming of course that I accept them as true rep- 
resentations of my faith and duty — certainly. For they 



158 Lectures on Teaching. 

are venerable formularies, which come to us with very 
sacred associations and with a great weight of authority. 
They have shaped the conduct and guided the devotions 
of my Christian forefathers for centuries, and they are 
presumably expressed in the choiqest, tersest, and most 
weighty words which tradition has been able to bestow 
upon us. Shall I learn by heart the historical compendium 
of the ingenious Mangnall ? Not if I can help it. Let me 
read to you two or three questions and answers from that 
author 

What became of the Druids ? They were almost entirely ex- 
tirpated when the Roman general Suetonius Paulinus took the 
island, or Anglesea, in the year 61, and Agricola a second time 
in 78. 

Eow were the public events transmitted to posterity when the 
Britons were ignorant of printing and writing f By their bards 
or poets, who were the only depositaries of national events. 

What Roman emperor projected an invasion of Britain, gathered 
only shells upon the coast, and then returned to Rome in triumph ? 
Caligula, in the year 40. 

What British generals distinguished themselves before the Saxon 
Heptarchy was formed f Cassivelaunus, defeated by Julius Caesar 
in 54 B.C., and Caractaeus, defeated and taken by Ostorius in 
.51 A.D., and sent a prisoner to Rome in the following year. 

What was the exclamation of Caractaeus when led in triumph 
through Rome f How is it possible that a people possessed of such 
magnificence should envy m© a humble cottage in Britain ! 

Now suppose I learn this lesson by heart, you observe 

that every answer consists of about one third 
Books of 
question and or fourth of a statement, of which all the rest 

lies in the question. And the question is not 

learnt by heart. So the fragment actually committed to 

memory is incomplete and means nothing. Even if the 



Learning and Remembering, 159 

question were remembered;, the separate facts thus learned 
are incoherent and unrelated, and so, though concerned 
with one of the most interesting of all subjects, are made 
profoundly uninteresting. To print a book of questions 
and answers is to assume that there is to be no real contact 
of thought between scholar and master, that all the ques- 
tions which are to be ask^d are to take one particular form, 
and that they all admit of but one answer. There is no 
room for inquisitiveness on the part of the learner, nor for 
digression on the part of the teacher, no room for the play 
of the intelligence of either around the subject in hand; 
the whole exercise has been devised to convert a study 
which ought to awaken intelligence, into a miserable me- 
chanical performance ; and two people who ought to be in 
intimate intellectual relations with each other, into a brace 
of impostors — the one teaching nothing, the other learning 
nothing, but both acting a part and reciting somebody 
else's words out of a book. It is said that there are schools 
in existence in which MangnalFs Questions is actually 
still in use as a task-book to be learned by heart, and that 
new editions of it are in constant demand. It is ap- 
palling to think of the way in which whole generations of 
English girls and boys have been stupefied by this book and 
by others like it. 
-^t will be seen on further consideration that many of 
the metaphors we are accustomed to use about memory are 
like all metaphors when applied to the resrion 

f ■ A • -4. 1 T4. +!,• • Memory not 

01 our mner and spiritual liie — a thmsj mis- a receptacle 

^ ° to l)e filled. 

leading. To speak of memory as a receptacle 

which may be filled, or as a chain which may draw treasure 

up from a well, is to imply that memory is a limited power. 

And this is not true. It is capable of indefinite increase 

and improvement by exercise. Nevertheless, minds which 



i6o Lectures on Teaching. 

are differently constituted will develop in different ways, 
and when we have subjected them all to the same dis- 
cipline there will remain great diversities of result. To 
some the memory will be specially retentive in regard to 
names and words, to some the recollection of places and 
persons will be easier than that of the names which desig- 
nate them. An unreasoning person may catch up by ear 
the words of a foreign tongue with far greater readiness 
than one whose habits of mind lead him to be always on 
the watch for the laws of language and for illustrations 
of comparative philology. We need not seek to obliterate 
these distinctions. Even a deficiency in the power of carry- 
ing a truth in the exact form in which we first received it 
may coexist with the power of recording that truth by a 
process of reflection in some other and possibly better form. 
Thucydides and Lord Bolingbroke went so far as to com- 
plain of the possession of a memory so prodigious, so in- 
discriminately tenacious, that it was rather a hindrance 
than a help to their intellectual activity. " Some people," 
says Archbishop Whately, " have been intellectually dam- 
aged by having what is called a good memory. An un- 
skilful teacher is content to put before children all they 
ought to learn, and to take care that they remember it; 
and so, though the memory is retentive, the mind is left in 
a passive state ; and men wonder that he who was so 
quick at learning and remembering should not be an able 
man, which is as reasonable as to wonder that a cistern, if 
filled, should not be a perpetual fountain. Many men are 
saved by the deficiency of their memory from being spoiled 
by their education ; for those who have an extraordinary 
memory are driven to supply its place by thinking. If. 
they do not remember a mathematical demonstration they 
are driven to devise one. If they do not remember what 



Learning and Remembering, i6i 

Aristotle or Bacon said, they are driven to consider what 
they are likely to have said, or ought to have said." 

TIius, wliile we do well to mark deficiencies in any one 
particular form of memory among our pupils, 
and to supply appropriate exercises for remov- iessoii?donof 
ing them, we may be consoled to remember tiS"^^urp^e. 
that there are compensations for these de- 
ficiencies. It is most undesirable that all minds should 
conform, or be made to conform, to the same type, and so 
long as by some process or other — the verbal association 
or the logical association — the mind can be led back to the 
truth once known, and that the truth can be so recovered 
for the purpose for which it is now required, we may be 
well content. Only let us in teaching anything always give 
the impression that it will be wanted again. Let us re- 
member that our minds refuse to retain mere isolated facts 
which are not associated with something which we knew 
before, or which we hope to know hereafter. It is by fre- 
quent recapitulation, by recalling the work of other les- 
sons, by showing the relation between the past, the present, 
and the future stages of learning, that we encourage the 
student to make that effort of attention which is indis- 
pensable to remembering. This is why so many of the 
memory exercises which are given in schools are so barren 
of result. They lead to nothing of which the scholar can 
see the value. 

Up to a certain time in the course of learning any sub- 
ject its details seem dry and uninteresting, and 
are learned by a conscious and not always agree- JJ^arfne^*" 
able efl'ort. But there comes a moment, say ?**§^^ i^^^i^^ 

' J va. some sud- 

in the learning of a language, when the learner JthM.?^^^ 

catches its spirit, receives a new idea through 

its means, actually uses it as an instrument of thought. 



i62 Lectures on Teaching. 

From that moment all the gerund-grinding^ the weary ex- 
ercises in vocabulary and grammar, have a new meaning 
and value. Knowledge has passed into the form of culture, 
and the memory exercises all prove to have served their 
purpose. So in arithmetic and mathematics, the moment 
the student perceives the principle of a rule, the process 
ceases to be mechanical and becomes intelligent. Here the 
fruit-bearing stage of the study comes earlier than in lan- 
guage, and it may be said that an elementary knowledge 
in this department, even if it stops short at the elements, 
is worth something. But if the fruit-bearing stage is not 
reached, if the study is not carried far enough to enable 
a student to receive or express a thought by means of the 
language, much of the time spent in acquiring the rudi- 
ments is absolutely wasted. There is nothing in the future 
life of the student to recall to him what he has learned, 
and" much of it comes to nothing. 

Yet it would not be right to conclude that all knowl- 
edge which is forgotten has failed to serve a 

The uses of ° *^ 

forgotten useful purpose. It may be forgotten in the 
knowledge. ^ • ^ ■ ^ i n i 

form in which it has been received, but it may 

reappear in another. What is true in the vegetable world 
is often true in the world of spirit and of thought: "Ex- 
cept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
alone.^' It comes to nothing. The condition of its ger- 
minating and giving birth to something better than itself 
is that it shall die, and that it shall cease to retain the 
exact shape and character which it had at first. It is true 
that what is hastily acquired is hastily lost. What is con- 
sciously got up for some temporary purpose drops out of 
the mind and leaves no trace. Like Jonah^s gourd, it comes 
up in a night and perishes in a night. It is not of this I 
speak. But all knowledge once honestly acquired and made 



Learning and Remembering. 163 

a subject of thought germinates, even though in time it 
becomes unrecognizable, and seems to disappear altogether. 
It lias fulfilled its purpose, has deepened a conviction, has 
formed the legitimate ground for some conclusion on 
which in turn something else has been built; and it gives 
to the learner a sense of freedom and of elbow-room when 
in after-life he is dealing with it and cognate subjects, 
such as he could not possibly experience if the subject were 
wholly new to him. Eules serve their purpose if they 
form our habits of speech or of action, even though these 
habits are not consciously, obedient to the rules, and al- 
though the rules themselves could not be restated in an 
explicit form. A demonstration in mathematics has done 
its work if, for the time, it gave an insight into the true 
method of reasoning, even though in later life we utterly 
fail to remember the theorem or the proof. So the exact 
character of a set of experimental illustrations in physics 
may be entirely forgotten; yet if the truth they illustrated 
was by their help fastened on the mind, and has subse- 
quently been seen in wider and more varied application, 
we have no right to say that the original effort has been 
wasted. 

The thoughts and experiences which make up the sum 
of our mental life in different years vary as much as the 
particles that compose the body. Some disappear and 
others take their place. But the life is the same so long 
as there is continuity and health. Personal identity con- 
sists, not in sameness of substance, but in continuity 
of life. So the relation of what you teach to the per- 
manent thoughts and work of the pupil consists in its ca- 
pacity for development into something not itself, but akin 
to itself, better than itself. Here then is one of the tests 
of our school-lessons. Grant that as school-lessons thev 



164 Lectures on Teaching. 

will be forgotten. Let us reconcile ourselves to this as 
inevitable, and ask in relation to everything which we 
teach : " Is it germinating and fruit-bearing, or not ? 
When the husk and shell shall have decayed, will there be 
anything left ? If so, what ? Will this bit of knowledge 
drop wholly out of the memory and leave no trace ? If so, 
I will not teach it, though it is in the text-book. Or will 
it, even though it looks crabbed and unpractical, make 
the perception of some larger and more useful truth easy ; 
will it leave some effect in the form of improved taste, 
truer judgment, or increased power to balance opposing 
facts ? If so, I will have it learned, even though I know 
it will be forgotten; and I will feel thankful that there 
is an art of wisely forgetting, as well as one of useful re- 
membering." 

The main instruments for obtaining knowledge and stor- 
ing the memory are three: oral exposition; self-tuition 
and reflection ; and book or task-work. Of the 

mentsof reaction in modern times against the too fre- 

learniag'. 

(I) Oral in- quent use of books and tasks I have already 

struction. 

spoken. And there can be little doubt that 

this reaction is right, and that as people get a worthier 
and truer perception of the nature of teaching, oral in- 
struction comes to be more valued. It is chiefly by means 
of the living voice that scholars can be really inspired; 
Its advanta- ^^ ^^ ^^^J when the eyes meet and expression 
^^^' and gestures are seen, and tones are heard, that 

there arises that subtle and indefinable sympathy between 
teacher and taught, which is so essential to the intellectual 
life of the scholar. Then only can there be that adaptation 
of the matter to his wants ; the light glancing over unim- 
portant details, the rest and repetition over the more sig- 
nificant facts, the pause after what is exceptionally diffi- 



Learning and Remembering. 165 

cult, tlie -aappy illustration, the argumentum ad Jiomiiiem, 
the brisk and pointed question by which the teacher as- 
sures himself that he is being followed and understood. 
For all this the teacher wants fluency, fertility and quick- 
ness of resource, care in the choice of his language, a 
lucidus ordo in his arrangement; a power of putting the 
same truth in several different lights; a quick insight in 
discovering what are the difficulties in the learner's mind, 
and in removing each difficulty when it occurs ; a certain 
tact which tells him when he may safely hasten, when he 
ought to linger, how fast he should go, and where he ought 
to stop. 

There is room then for something in the nature of a 
lecture, for the collective or class. lesson, in connection with 
every subject you teach. 

But while such teaching is after all the great vitalizing 
instrument in education, we may not forget 
that, if too exclusively relied on, it has its 
drawbacks. There is first the danger lest the teacher 
should mistake the signs of collective animation for in- 
dividual progress. The whole may seem interested, and 
yet the units composing the whole may be very imperfectly 
taught. The sympathetic influence arising from the pres- 
ence of numbers, all of whom are working together to the 
same end, has the effect of awakening interest; but it has 
also the disadvantage of making this result seem greater 
than it is. Then a skilful oral teacher often anticipates 
difficulties, seeks to exemplify and explain everything, 
and in this way leaves the scholar too little to do for him- 
self. He stimulates attention, but he does not strengthen 
the habit of independent research. Too great reliance 
on the lecture system is apt also to lead pupils to reproduce 
everything which has been taught in the teacher's own 



1 66 Lectures on Teaching. 

words. Besides^ in the desire to make things interesting 
the teacher is fain to indulge in generalizations, in pic- 
turesque statements, which though true and right as the 
result of a knowledge of data, are extremely pretentious 
and unreal without such data. And the effect on a learner's 
mind of letting him see the whole without showing him 
the parts, and of encouraging him to accept a general in- 
duction without knowing the particulars on which it has 
been based, is sometimes very mischievous. 

These are dangers inseparably connected with the 
lecturing or expository system. They beset in a special 
way the most earnest and sympathetic teachers. They are 
to be guarded against (1) by the incessent use of oral ques- 
tions during the lesson ; (2) by requiring that note-taking 
during the lesson shall be limited to a few significant head- 
ings or technical words, and shall not reproduce the 
phrases or sentences of the teacher ; (3) by causing the 
substance of the whole lesson to be thought out, and in 
part written out after the delivery of it is finished ; (4) 
and, above all, by taking care to leave something sub- 
stantial for the learner to do, to find out, or to arrange for 
himself. 

For after all we may not, in our zeal for the improve- 
(2) Seif-tui- i^snt of schools as places of instruction, for- 
tion. gQi -j-j^a^ some of the best work of our own 

lives has taken the form of self -tuition. Consider the mul- 
titude of great and famous men who have struggled to 
master problems without any external aid, and consider 
too how precious and abiding knowledge won by our own 
efforts always is. It is true boys and girls do not come 
to school mainly for what is called self-tuition, but for 
help and guidance ; nevertheless, it is a good rule never 
to tell them what you could make them tell you ; never 



Learning aad Remembering. 167 

to do for them what they could do for themselves. Your 
teaching is not to supersede books^ but rather to lead 
them to the right use of books. You have been studying, 
e.g., for a time the history of Edward III.; you want to 
gather it all up, and to give unity to the impressions of 
that particular period left on the minds of the learners. 
You give therefore a short catechetical lecture on the life 
of Wyclif, whom you select as a representative man of the 
time. But you would not do well even to try to make 
such a lecture exhaustive. Something should be left for 
the pupils to hunt out by themselves. A good teacher 
will say : " I have tried to sketch out the main incidents 
and drift of Wyclif s life, and I want you in the course 
of next week to write a biography, as complete as you can. 
You will find additional information in Longman's book, 
and in Chaucer's Prologue, in Pauli's Pictures of Old 
England, and in Palgrave's Merchant and the Friar. Do 
not think it necessary to follow the order I have sketched, 
or to make the same estimate of his character which I 
have given, if you find any facts which seem to tend the 
other way." Be sure that if, as the result of your teach- 
ing, your pupils seem indisposed to read for themselves, 
if they get the impression that all that needs to be known 
will be told them by yourself, then there is a fatal flaw even 
in the most animated oral lessons, and your methods need 
to be revised. 

Book-w^ork for lessons has obvious advantages. It is 
definite. It puts into a concise and remem- .3 -qq^^, 
berable form, — it focusses, so to speak, much work, 
of what is treated discursively in oral lessons. It can be 
revised again and again, as often as is necessary, until it 
is understood. Just as oral teaching is the main instru- 
ment for awakening intelligence, so book-work is the chief 



1 68 Lectures on Teaching. 

safeguard for accuracy, clearness of impression, and per- 
manence. We cannot do without either. It is, however, 
the best teachers who are most in danger of undervaluing 
set lessons from books. It is the worst, or at least the 
commonplace, the indolent, the uninspired teachers who 
have a constant tendency to overvalue them. As I have 
already said, it is the easiest of all forms of teaching to 
set a book lesson, and to say, " Go and prepare it." It is 
because it is so easy that a good teacher will always exer- 
cise special watchfulness over himself, and ask before set- 
ting a lesson, " Is this really the best way of effecting my 
purpose ? " 

Before descending to detail and offering rules as to 
Its short- ^^^^^~ ^^^ book-w^ork, it may be w^ell to go back 
comings. ^ \ong way for a few moments, to ask you to 

consider how the relation of written work to intellectual 
exertion is illustrated in the Phcedrus, one of the dia- 
logues of Plato. Socrates is pointing out to one of his 
disciples how easy it is for a student to mistake means 
for ends, and to make the art of writing rather a substi- 
tute for mental effort than an aid to it. 

" I will tell you a story, my dear Phsedrus. Theuth was one of 
the ancient gods of Egypt, who was the first to invent arithmetic 
and geometry, and draughts and dice, but especially letters. Now 
Thamus was at this time the king of Egypt, and dwelt in the great 
city of Thebes. To him Theuth went and showed him all the arts 
which he had devised, and asked him to make them known to the 
rest of the Egyptians. Thamus asked him what was the use of 
each. But when they came to the letters, ' This knowledge, king,' 
said the deity, ' will make thy people wiser, for I have invented it 
both as a medicine for memory and for wisdom.' But the king an- 
swered : ' Most ingenious Theuth, it is for you to find out cunning 
inventions, it is for others to judge of their worth and their noble- 
ness. But methinks you, out of fondness for your own dis- 
covery, have attributed to it precisely the opposite effect to tha.t 



Learning and Remembering. 169 

which it will have. For this invention will produce forgetfulness 
en the part of those who use it, since by trusting to writing they 
will remember' outwardly by means of foreign marks, and not in- 
wardly by means of their own faculties. You are providing for 
my people the appearance rather than the reality of wisdom. For 
they will think they have got hold of something valuable when 
they only possess themselves of written words, and they will deem 
themselves wise without being so.' What say you, my Phsedrus, 
did the king speak truly ? 

" ' I think, Socrates, that you can make up stories from Egypt 
or any other country you please, when you want to prove any- 
thing.' 

" Nay, but my dear Phsedrus, consider not where the story comes 
from, but whether it is true. For in the old days men were ready 
in the groves of Dodona, and in other places, to listen to an oak 
or a stone, provided it spoke the truth. And consider further, 
my Phsedrus, that written discourses have this disadvantage, they 
seem as if they were alive and possessed some wisdom, but if you 
ask them to explain anything they say, they preserve a solemn 
silence, or give at best but one and the selfsame answer. And 
once written, every discourse is tossed about and read alike by 
those who understand it and by those whom it in nowise con- 
cerns, and it knows not to whom to speak, and to whom to be 
silent. But after all, if writing is to be of any service, it must be 
to recall that which is already known and understood; and unless 
knowledge is shaped and fixed in a learner's soul, it is of no value 
at all." 

Perhaps this old Greek apologue may not be without 
a useful bearing upon the next practical ques- character- 

tion before us. " What are the conditions on i^^ics of good 

home exer- 

which book-work and written exercises, espe- "^^^* 
cially those done out of school, are most likely to serve a 
useful educational purpose ? " 

The first of these conditions is that the exercises should 
not be too long. Children under twelve should »,, . ,j 

° Tney should 

not be asked to do home work which takes not he long:, 
more than an hour, nor scholars of any age to do more 



1 yo Lectures on Teaching, 

than can "be fairly done in two hours. A good teacher 
will ask the parents to inform him if the time devoted to 
home exercises exceeds this limit, and if it proves to do so, 
the lesson should be diminished in amount. Nor should 
lessons given to be prepared at home be such as require 
or presuppose intelligent assistance. It is not fair for a 
teacher to relegate much of his own work to the parent. 
It may be that your pupil is so circumstanced that he has 
no access at home to scholarly help ; and in that case you 
impose an unreasonable burden on him, and your task 
will not be done. x\nd if he has access to such help, the 
beneficent influence of an intelligent home will produce 
far more effect in ordinary intercourse than if father or 
mother is reduced to the role of a school assistant. Home 
has its own sacredness, and its own appropriate forms of 
training. Do not let the school exercises encroach too far 
upon it. 

Home lessons should be very definite, and admit of easy 
correction. They have no value, and they en- 
t)eyery courage carelessness, unless they are thor- 

oughly examined. Think well then before 
setting them whether you have leisure and teaching power 
enough to examine them critically. And to this end let 
an exercise of this kind be as far as possible such as admits 
of only one way of being right, so that it may be perfectly 
clear if it is wrong how and why it is wrong. Eemember 
that exercises may be very easy to set, but very difficult to 
examine and test. Nothing is easier after a lesson than to 
say, " Write me to-night an account of what has been said 
to-day." But when the exercises some in you will find that 
there are a dozen different forms of right and a hundred 
ways in which it is possible to be wrong ; and that to 
bring the merits and defects clearly before the mind of 



Learning and Remembering. 171 

your pupils implies discussion and lengthy personal in- 
terviews with each child, which, however valuable, take 
too much time. And unless you have the time to spare, 
do not try it ; but keep to lists, names, definitions, facts, 
of which you can say at once whether they are right or 
wrong. 

One great advantage of very definite lessons is that they 
often admit of being expeditiously corrected xheyshotad 
in class, by the method of mutual revision. JeSycorrec- 
The exercise books change hands, and each *^®^- 
scholar takes a pencil for the marking of mistakes, while 
the teacher publicly goes through the questions, causing 
the answers to be read, and criticising them when they 
are wrong. After errors have been marked, they are 
handed back to the original writers. This is not the only 
way of correcting exercises, and many occasions arise 
when more minute personal supervision is needed on the 
part of the teacher. But it economizes time, it furnishes 
the occasion for a most effective form of recapitulatory 
lesson, and it awakens interest by putting the scholars into 
a new attitude of mind — that of critics. Moreover, it is 
far more effective as a means of correction than the labor- 
ious marking of exercise books by the teacher after hours. 
For such commentaries as there is time to write on the 
margin are necessarily very concise and incomplete, and 
not unfrequently remain unread. It is obvious, however, 
that this plan of mutual correction in class, though I be- 
lieve it might be more largely adopted with advantage, 
presupposes that the exercises are very definite in their 
character, such as memory-work, translation, and arith- 
metic, and is inapplicable to essays or general composi- 
tion. 



172 Lectures on Teaching. 

Two distinct objects may be contemplated in the set- 
ting of home tasks. The one^ that the lessons 
fe^supp^e-^* so learned shall be preparatory, and give the 
rathe?Sian materials for to-morrow^s lesson ; the other^ 
preparatory. ^^^^ ^^^^ should be supplementary, and should 
have a bearing on the school-teaching of the previous day. 
There is an obvious sense in which any given lesson may 
be said to fulfil both purposes. ^Nevertheless, your minds 
should be clearly made up as to the purpose which you 
think the more important of the two. One view on this 
point is well expressed by Mr. D. R. Fearon in his very 
able and useful work on School Inspection. He says of 
geography and history, that " matters of fact should be 
acquired by pupils out of school, in readiness for the les- 
sons. It is a deplorable waste of teaching power, and is 
ruinous both to teacher and taught, to let the teacher^s 
time and vigor be spent in telling the children mere rudi- 
mentary facts which they can gain from a text-book. . . . 
At Marlborough and Rugby the scholars are expected to 
get up those mere elements out of school, and the business 
of the master is one which presupposes in his scholars an 
acquaintance with such rudiments ; it is to test, illustrate, 
amplify and give interest to such presupposed elementary 
knowledge." 

Now grant that the distinction here made is a right one, 
that all the interesting and intelligent work has to be done 
in school, and all the drudgery out of it, it is still an open 
question whether the task of learning names and facts 
may not be greatly lightened by coming after rather than 
before your lesson. It is rather hard on a child to expect 
him to deal thus with all the dry bones, until you come 
and clothe them with flesh and with life. I hold that 
however judicious this method may be in some exceptional 



Learning and Rememberins[. 173 

cases, it is a safe general rule that out-of-door exercises 
should be designed less often to prepare the way for a 
coming lesson than to deepen and fix the memory of a past 
lesson. Children learn with much more zest and interest 
that of which they can see the bearing and the use than 
that which they are merely told will have a bearing and a 
use hereafter. 

So if I were going to give a lesson on the geography 
of Switzerland, I would not require the schol- m^gtrative 
ars the day before to get up a list of the examples, 
towns, the cantons, or the mountains. But I would give 
a general oral description, would describe by map or model 
its physical configuration, would try to awaken some in- 
terest in the hardy, thrifty, liberty-loving people who 
lived in it ; and then at the end of the lesson would re- 
quire a map of the country and a few written data about 
it to be prepared as a home lesson. So in arithmetic, I 
would not, if to-morrow's lesson were to be on a reducing 
fractions to a common denominator, say to the scholars, 
" ISTow to-night you are to learn by heart a new rule, and 
I will explain it and show you how to apply it to-morrow." 
It is in my judgment a better plan to begin by taking a 
problem and working it out inductively on the black- 
board, to show as you go on the need of each process and 
its fitness for the end proposed ; and then at the end of it 
to say : " What we have thus found is contained in a rule 
which I want you to learn and write out. Here also are 
three examples to be worked in the same manner, which 
you will do to-night." So with a new grammatical dis- 
tinction, say the ablative absolute, I would give an expla- 
nation, seek to make it clear by a few striking examples, 
and then give out as a home lesson the task (1) of learn- 
ing the rule or definition by heart — provided it were such 



1 74 Lectures on Teaching. 

a rule or definition as fulfilled the conditions we have al- 
ready laid down — and (2) of finding out in a given page or 
chapter as many examples of the ablative absolute as pos- 
sible. 

I am far from saying that there are no cases in which it 
is good to give out a home exercise in anticipation of to- 
morrow's work. You want, e.g., to have an ode of Horace 
or a fable of La Fontaine prepared to-morrow. Now if 
you say to a child, " Learn this, and be prepared to-mor- 
row with a complete translation of it ; '^ and you expect 
then to find him able- to account for all the idioms and 
allusions, what you are asking is somewhat unreasonable. 
The complete understanding of the whole passage is pre- 
cisely that which your teaching is meant to give him. You 
must not throw upon him so much responsibility. But it 
is well to say : " We are going to take to-morrow the 
twelfth ode of the second book, and we shall read it in 
class together. Find out therefore to-night from the dic- 
tionary all the words you do not already know.'' That is 
a perfectly legitimate requirement. If that is fulfilled, 
you have some material to work with. You read it line 
by line, you elicit by questioning as much grammar and 
idiom as is known, you supply the new facts, the illustra- 
tion of new grammatical difficulties, the allusions, the 
significance of the metaphors, the turns of happy expres- 
sion ; and then, when you have done this, you say, " To- 
night I shall expect you to write me a full and careful 
translation of the whole ; and here are a dozen words — 
proper names, idioms, or allusive phrases — which you will 
underline, and on each of which you must write a special 
comment or explanation." 

Thus, you will see, the home or evening work which 
may legitimately be set is partly preparatory and partly 



Learning and Remembering. 175 

supplementary to your class teaching. But the best part 
of it is supplementary. And I have no doubt that, as a 
general rule, the chief value of written exercises is to give 
definiteness to lessons already learned, and to thrust them 
home into the memory rather than to break new ground. 
Kindle interest and sympathy first. Let the scholars see 
what you are aiming at, and catch something of your own 
interest and enthusiasm in the pursuit of truth, and then 
they will be prepared to take some trouble in mastering 
those details which they see to be needed in order to give 
system and clearness to their knowledge. But he who ex- 
pects children to master with any earnestness details of 
which they do not see the purpose, is asking them to make 
bricks without straw, and will certainly be disappointed. 



176 Lectures on Teaching. 



VI. EXAMINING. 

The whole subject of Examinations looms very large in 
Examina- ^^^ vision of the public and is apt to be seen 
tions. Q^^ qI ij;g ^j.^g proportions, mainly because it is 

the one portion of school business which is recorded in 
newspapers. We shall perhaps arrive at right notions about 
it more readily, if we first consider the business of ex- 
amining as wholly subordinate to that of education, and as 
part of the work of a school. If we are led to just conclu- 
sions on this point, we may then hope to consider with 
profit the effect of the tests and standards applied to school 
work by outside bodies, by University Examiners, or in 
competitions for the -public service. 

First, however, we may be fitly reminded that the art of 

putting questions is one of the first and most 

putting: necessary arts to be acquired by a teacher. To 

questions. -^ ^ "^ 

know how to put a good question is to have 

gone a long way towards becoming a skilful and efficient 

instructor. It is well, therefore, to ask ourselves what 

are the conditions under which catechising can be most 

effective. 

The object of putting questions to a child whom we are 

instructing may be — 

(1) To find out what he knows, by way of preparing 
him for some further instruction 

(2) To discover his misconceptions and difficulties. 

(3) To secure the activity of his mind and his co-opera- 
tion while you are in the act of teaching him. 



Examining. 177 

(4) To test the result and outcome of what you have 
taught. 

So that interrogation is not only a means of discovering 
what is known, it is itself a prime instrument in imparting 
knowledge. In the employment of all our faculties, we 
want not only the dynamic power, but the guiding sensa- 
tion to tell us what we are doing. If a man is deaf, he 
soon becomes dumb. Unless he can hear himself, he ceases 
to know how to talk, and he soon leaves off caring to talk. 
So as we go on giving a lesson, we are completely in the 
dark, unless by means of constant questioning we keep our- 
selves en ra/pport with our pupil, and know exactly whether 
and how far he is following us. 

Hence the first object of questioning is to awaken curi- 
osity, to conduct the learner, so to speak, to 
the boundaries of his previous knowledge, and tionsof 
thus to put his mind into the right attitude 
for extending those boundaries by learning something new. 
x\nd we all know that the one person who is generally re- 
puted to be the master of this art, and who has in fact given 
his name to one particular form of catechising, was So- 
crates. Now what is the Socratic method of questioning ? 
Socrates was, as you know^ a philosopher who lived in 
the golden age of Greece, when intellectual activity in 
Athens was at its highest point ; and the function he 
assigned to himself was a very unique one. He saw around 
him a people who thirsted for knowledge, and were very 
fond of speculation. He saw also that there were a large 
class of men. Sophists, Ehetoricians, and others, who 
sought to satisfy this appetite. And what struck him most 
forcibly was the haste with which people generalized about 
things which they had imperfectly examined, the heed- 
lessness with which they used certain words before fixing 



1 78 Lectures on Teaching. 

their meanings and generally the need of more self-ex- 
amination and self-knowledge. Hence it was the chief 
purpose of the dialogues which have been handed down to 
us by his affectionate disciples Xenophon and Plato, to 
clear men's minds of illusions, and of the impediments to 
learning; and rather to put them into the best attitude 
for receiving knowledge and for making a right use of 
it, than to give to them definite dogmas, or authoritative 
statements of truth. I should have been well content if 
the plan of these lectures had allowed of our devoting one 
of our meetings exclusively to a consideration of his re- 
markable career, and to the effect of his method of teaching 
in awakening inquiry, and in purging and disciplining the 
faculties of his hearers. But it must suffice if I say even 
to those of you who do not read Greek that by devoting 
a little time to the perusal of some of the dialogues as 
given by Whewell or Jowett in their editions of Plato, or 
to a translation of the Memorabilia of Xenophon, or to 
Mr. Grote's or Professor Maurice's account of the teaching 
of Socrates and the Sophists of his day, you will acquire 
some very valuable hints. Meanwhile I should like to 
give you one short and free translation of a little dialogue 
from Xenophon which is characteristic of his method. 

There was a young man named Euthydemus in whom he took 

much interest, and who was fired with a very strong 

^aloeue**^ ambition to distinguish himself as a thinker and a 

philosopher. Socrates placed himself in his way and 

said : 

" They say, my Euthydemus, that you have collected many of 
the writings of those men whom we call wise : Is it so ? " 

" Most undoubtedly it is, and I shall not cease to collect them, 
for I value them very highly. I covet knowledge most of all." 

" What sort of knowledge do you desire most ? " H& then 
enumerates one after another the principal professions — that of a 



Examining, 179 

physician, an architect, a geometrician, and receives negative an- 
swers in each case. 

" Perhaps then you desire that kind of knowledge which makes 
tlie able statesman and a good economist, which qualifies for 
command and renders a man useful to himself and others." 

" That indeed is what I sigh for and am in search of," replied 
Euthydemus with no small emotion. 

Socrates commends this resolve, and by a few more questions 
elicits from his catechumen the declaration that what men want 
is a stronger sense of justice, and that he hoioes to be useful in 
making them understand their duties better. " Assuredly," he 
says in reply to Socrates's request for a definition of justice, " there 
can be no practical difficulty in pointing out what is just and 
what is unjust, in actions about which we are conversant daily." 

" Suppose theuj" says Socrates, " we draw a line and set down 
an Alpha here and an Omega there, and arrange under these two 
heads the things that belong to justice and injustice respect- 
ively." 

" You may do so, if you think there will be any use in such a 
method." 

" Now " (having done this) " Is there any such a thing as ly- 
ing ? " 

"Most certainly." 

" And on which side shall we place it ? " 

" Under Omega, the side of injustice certainly." 

" Do mankind ever deceive each other ? " 

" Frequently." 

" And where shall we place this deceit ? " 

" On the same side of the line." 

" Selling people into slavery who were born free ? " 

" Still the same certainly." 

" But suppose one whom you have elected to command your 
armies should take a city belonging to your enemies, and sell its 
inhabitants for slaves. Shall we say he acts unjustly ? " 

" By no means." 

" May we say he acts justly ? " 

"We may." 

" And what if while he is carrying on the war he deceiveth the 
enemy ? " 

" He will do right by so doing." 



i8o Lectures on Teaching, 

" May he not likewise, when he ravages their country, carry off 
their corn and their cattle without being guilty of injustice." 

" No doubt, Socrates,, and when I seemed to say otherwise I 
thought you confined what was spoken to our friends only." 

" So then, what we have hitherto placed under the letter Omega 
may be carried over and arranged under Alpha." 

" It may." 

" But will it not be necessary to make a further distinction, 
Euthydemus, and say that to behave in such a manner to our 
enemies is just, and to our friends unjust, because to these last the 
utmost simplicity and candor is due ? " 

" You are in the right, Socrates." 

"But how, if this general, on seeing the courage of his troops 
begin to fail, should make them believe fresh succors at hand, and 
by this means remove their fears; to which side should we assign 
this falsehood ? " 

" I suppose to justice." 

" Or, if a child refuseth the physic he stands in need of, and the 
father deceiveth him under the appearance of food, where shall 
we place this deceit, Euthydemus ? " 

" With the same, I imagine." 

" And, suppose a man in the height of despair should attempt 
to kill himself, and his friend should come and force away his 
sword, under what head are we to place this act of violence 1 " 

" I should think under the same head as the former. It is clearly 
not wrong." 

" But take care, Euthydemus, since it seemeth from your answers 
that we ought not always to treat our friends with candor and 
perfect truthfulness, which yet we had before agreed should be 
done." 

" It is plain we ought not, and I retract my former opinion, if 
it is allowable for me to do so." 

" Most assuredly, for it is far better to change our opinion than 
to persist in a wrong one. However, that we may pass over 
nothing without duly examining it, which of the two, Euthydemus, 
appears to you the more unjust, he who deceives his friend will- 
ingly, or he who does, it without having any such design ? " 

"By Jove, Socrates, I am not certain what I should answer oi* 
what I should think, for you have given such a turn to all I have 
said as to make it appear very different from what I thought it, 



Examinins^. i8i 

I fancied I was no stranger to philosopliy, but now it seems to 
me more difficult, and my own knowledge of it less than I sup- 
posed." 

Now^ by some such method, however humbling, it was 
Socrates's desire to bring the mind of a dis- gocratic 
ciple into a fit state for further investigation, questioning:. 
To show him that there were latent difficulties in many 
things which seemed very simple ; that plausible and well- 
sounding general propositions admitted of exceptions and 
qualifications which were often unsuspected; and that till 
these things had been recognized and carefully examined, 
it was premature to. dogmatize about them — all this ap- 
peared to him a needful part of intellectual discipline. 
And if, on reading what are called the " dialogues of 
search/^ you observe that they end in nothing but mere 
negative conclusions, and bring you to no definite state- 
ment of truth ; you may bear in mind that though this re- 
sult may seem disappointing, and though it undoubtedly 
disappointed his disciples very often, it would not have 
disappointed him. For if he could clear away illusions, 
and make people see the difference between what they knew 
and what they did not know, and so put them into a better 
condition for arriving at conclusions for themselves, he 
thought he had done them a greater intellectual service 
than if he had provided them with any ready-made con- 
clusions, however valuable. 

And, in like manner, I think we shall do wisely as teach- 
ers if we seek before 2fivin£f a new lesson to 

^ . , .X- IX • Application 

ascertain by means oi questions what previous of method to 
knowledge exists, and what misconceptions or 
vagueness are in the minds of our pupils on the subject 
we want to explain. Doing this serves two purposes. It 
reveals to you the measure of the deficiency you have to 



1 82 Lectures on Teaching, 

supply, and it awakens the sympathy and interest of the 
pupil by showing him what he has to learn. 

Supposing this preliminary work done, you have next to 
consider how questions may be most effectu- 
good gues- ally used in the course of lessons and at the end 
of them. 

The first requisite of a question is that it should be in 
perfectly clear, simple language, the meaning 
I. Clearness. ^| ^j^^^,]^ admits of no mistake. It should be 
expressed in as few words as possible. I heard a man 
questioning a class the other day in physical geography. 
He said: 

" Where do you expect to find lakes ? For instance, 
you know the difference between a chain of mountains and 
a group, don't you ? Well, 3^ou know the water comes 
down the side of a mountain, and must go somewhere. 
What is a lake ? " 

Here in this question there are four sentences, and two 
totally different questions. The questioner knew what he 
wanted, but while he was speaking, it dawned upon him 
that he might make it clearer, so he interposed a little 
explanation, and ended by putting a different question 
from that which he gave at first. It was amusing to see 
the puzzled and bewildered look of the children as they 
listened to this, and to many other of the like clumsy and 
inartistic questions, fenced round by qualifications and 
afterthoughts, until it was very hard for them to know 
what was really expected of them. In this particular case 
he had got hold of a very true notion. He should first 
have shown a drawing or a little model of a chain of moun- 
tains, and then have asked them to tell him what became 
of the streams that rolled down into a plain. Soon he 
would have elicited a good general notion of the course 



Examining. 183 

of rivers as determined by a water-shed. Then he should 
have asked what would happen if the mountains were not 
in a chain but in a group^ so that when the water rolled 
down one side it could not get away, but was stopped by 
another mountain. " What becomes of the water ? " It 
must stop in the valleys. " And when water remains in a 
valley, what do we call it ? " A lake. " Now tell me what 
a lake is." " How do you expect to find the mountains ar- 
ranged in a lake country ? In a group or in a range ? 
Why ? " Each question, you see, ought to be one, and in- 
divisible. There should be no ambiguity about the sort 
of answer it requires. 

Let me warn you also to avoid the habit of surround- 
ing your questions with little expletives and 
circumlocutions. " Can any one tell me ? " * 
" Which of you knows ? " " Will those hold up their 
hands who can answer ? " '^ Well, now, I want some child 
to answer this." Strip your question, as a rule, of all such 
verbiage and periphrase, and say plainly what you want. 
" Which are the verbs in that sentence ? " " Why is that 
noun in the ablative case ? " " How many feet are in a 
mile ? " Practise yourself in economizing your words, and 
reducing all such questions to their simj)lest forms. 

Generally too, all wide, vague inquiries should be 
avoided. " What do you think of that ? " 
" What sort of person was Henry VIII. ? " 
"Describe what happened in the civil war." "What are 
the uses of iron ? " I heard a teacher giving a lesson on 
the atmosphere. He described a man drowning, and 
brought out that he died for want of air. " Now," said 
he in triumph, "what is the thought that occurs to our 
minds ? " Well, I am sure I could not have answered that 
question ; a good many thoughts occurred to my mind, 



184 Lectures on Teachings 

but as I had no clear knowledge of the particular thought 
which was in his, and which he expected from his class, 1 
should certainly have been silent, — and so were his pu- 
pils. Questions of this sort, which admit of a good many 
answers, or of a long and comprehensive answer, are per- 
fectly legitimate in a written examination, because then 
there is leisure to answer them fully. But they are un- 
suited to oral questioning, which should always be brisk 
and pointed, and should elicit one fact at a time. 

Need I warn you against the use of that style of ques- 
tions in which the whole of what has to be 
giiirinl mere Said is said by the teacher, and the scholar is 
trneg&tive simply called on to assent. Here is an extract 
answer. from a nice little catechism on " good man- 

ners," published in Scotland for the use of Board Schools : 

" Q. — Is untruthfulness a very common vice in children ? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — Are children much tempted to the commission of it ? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — Is untruthfulness or lying a low and degrading vice, re- 
pugnant to conscience, punishable by law, and universally ab- 
horred and condemned ? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — And yet you say children are guilty of it, and greatly 
tempted to its commission ? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — Are there instances recorded in Scripture of this sin being 
instantly visited by the punishment of death ? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — Ought any one to respect, or esteem, a known liar ? 

A.— No. 

Q. — Would you willingly associate with, or make a companion 
of, any boy or girl known to be a liar ? 

A.— No." 



Examining. 185 

I need not say tliat there is no questioning here, not- 
withstanding the catechetical form of the book from which 
I take it. Little children say " yes ^' and " no " quite me- 
chanically as they listen to these admirable sentiments. 
They know by the very tones of your voice what answer 
you expect ; and they can give it without in the least de- 
gree appropriating the idea conveyed by your questions. 
You may easily test this for yourself ; and for the pres- 
ent, take my word for it that the power to give a mere 
affirmative or negative answer to your questions may co- 
exist with complete ignorance of the whole subject you 
are professing to teach. 

And in a less degree, I would have you distrust all 
answers which consist of single words. You ex- 
plain by a diagram or otherwise to little chil- bie of i)eiiig 

' , . answered 

dren, what the line is which passes through the in single 

X o words, 

centre, and yoit say that it is called a diameter. 

Some teachers would follow up this explanation by say- 
ing, " What do we call this line ? " A diameter. "^ What 
is it ? '' A diameter. xTow the mere echo of the word 
may readily be given you in this way if you repeat the 
question a dozen times, and given by children who do not 
know what it means. The word diameter is part of a sen- 
tence. " The line which passes through the centre of a 
circle or of a sphere is called a diameter.^^ And unless the 
children have appropriated this whole sentence they have 
learned nothing. So the moment you have elicited the 
word in reply to one question, put a second question in 
another form, " What is a diameter ? " This will make 
them give you the rest of the sentence. And then after- 
wards, " N"ow what have we learned ?" " That a diameter 
is, etc." Let us remember that every answer we get to an 
ordinary question is a fragment of a sentence ; that it is 



iS6 Lectures on Teaching. 

only the sentence, and not the single word which conveys 
any meaning ; and that the questioner who understands 
his art turns his question round until he gets from his 
scholars successively the other parts of the sentence and 
finally the whole. Indeed one of the best tests of a good 
question is the relation between the number of words em- 
ployed by the teacher and the pupil respectively. If the 
teacher does all the talking, and the pupil only responds 
with single words, the questioning is bad. The great ob- 
ject should be with the minimum of your own words to 
draw out the maximum of words and of thought from 
him. 

It will be obvious to you that questions should not be 
put that you could not answer yourself, or to 
to which it is which you have no reasonable right to expect 
to expect an an answer ; nor should the} be repeated to 
those who cannot reply. The Socratic 
elenchus is a mischievous expedient, if it is so used as to 
worry children for knowledge which they do not possess. 
For in this case you encourage the habit of guessing, which 
is clearly a bad habit. So all questions ending in the word 
"What,'' and a large number of elliptical questions, in 
which the teacher makes an assertion, and then stops for 
the scholar to fill up the last word, are open to the same 
criticism. And as to the practice of suggesting the first syl- 
lable of a word to some one who cannot recollect it, it is 
one which would never be adopted at all by a skilled ques- 
tioner. 

In putting a series of questions, whether in the actual 

course of teaching, or for purposes of recapit- 

7. Continuity. ^ ^. , • -• x i. i;i 

ulation and examination, great care should 

be taken to preserve continuity and order. Each ques- 
tion should grow out of the last answer, or be in some 



Examining. 187 

way logically connected with it. Consider the manner 
in whicli lawyers wlio practise at the bar employ the art 
of questioning. Yon read in the newspapers the evidence 
given at a trials and are struclv with the clearness and co- 
herence of the story, especially when you know that it 
was given by an ignorant witness under all the bewildering 
excitement of publicity. But in fact, no such story as 
you read has been narrated. The lawyer has elicited fact 
after fact by a series of questions, and the reporter has 
given you the answers only. And the method and clear- 
ness, the absence of ail irrelevant matter which strike you 
so much in the evidence, are due, not to the narrative 
powers of the witness, but to the skill of the barrister who 
knew exactly what he wanted, and in what order the facts 
should be evolved. Apply this test to your own work 
sometimes. Ask yourself when your scholars close their 
books and you question them on a reading lesson, how 
the series of answers would look if taken down by an un- 
seen reporter, and printed out in full. Would they be or- 
derly, would they be readable ? Would they cover the 
whole ground, and make a complete summary of what has 
been learned ? Unless your questions would stand this 
test, you have yet something to learn of the teacher's craft. 
And with regard to the answers which either you fail 

to sret, or which when you sjet, you find to be 

° ^ J iD ^ J The answers. 

wholly wrong, or partly wrong and partly 
right, a word or two must be said. If the answering is 
bad, either you have been asking for what was not known, 
or for what had been insufficiently explained, in which 
case you should go back and teach the subject again. Or 
there may be knowledge but no disposition to answer, in 
which case your discipline is bad, and you must fall back 
upon some way of recovering it. All random and foolish 



1 88 Lectures on Teaching. 

answering is rudeness, and should be dealt with as such. 
But the wrong answers which come from scholars who 
want to be right generally require to be met with a ques- 
tion differently shaped. Do not leap to the conclusion 
that because your question is not answered, nothing is 
known. Take your question back, alter its shape, or put 
a simpler one. Perhaps after all, the thing you want to 
get at is known, but the difficulty is in the mere expression 
of it. You have been giving a lesson on the pressure of 
the atmosphere, and you say, " Why is boiling water not 
so hot on the top of a mountain as in a valley ? ^' Now 
if the class is silent, it may be simply because this is a 
complex question, and a good deal might be said in an- 
swering it ; and your pupil, though knowing something 
about it, does not know exactly where to begin. So you 
keep your question in mind, but for the moment withdraw 
it. You then ask in succession, " What happens when 
water begins to boil ? What the bubbling means ? What 
would have prevented the bubbling from beginning so 
soon ? Greater pressure of air. What would have caused 
the bubbling to begin earlier ? Less pressure. Whether the 
water is capable of receiving more heat after it begins to 
bubble ?" "What is the state of the air up a mountain 
as compared with that below ? " and so forth ; and to all 
of these detailed questions you will probably get answers. 
And having got them, it may be well then to go back and 
to say, " I asked you at first a hard question including all 
these particulars. Which of you can now give me a com- 
plete answer to that first question ? " Do not be im- 
patient, and hasten to answer your own questions, which 
of course is often the easiest thing to do. It is in the 
very act of drawing out the knowledge and thought of the 
scholars, and piecing it togetlier, that you are bringing 



Examining, 189 

their intelligence into discipline. You have to show them 
that much of what you want them to know they may find 
in themselves^ and that you can help them to find it. 
And you can only do this by cultivating very great variety 
in the form in which you put your questions, and by prac- 
tising the art of resolving all complex questions which 
prove too difficult into a series of simple ones. When a 
good teacher receives a clumsy answer, which is partly 
wrong and partly right, or which though right in sub- 
stance is wrong in form, he does not reject it ; but either 
he accepts it as partially true and stops, and after obtain- 
ing a better answer from another scholar, goes back, and 
asks the first to amend his answer : or else he sees that 
the full investigation of the difficulty thus revealed would 
carry him too far from the main purpose of the lesson and 
spoil its unity. In this case he reserves the point, so to 
speak, says it wants further examination, and promises 
either at the end of the lesson, or very soon in a new one, 
to go into the matter and clear the difficulty away. Never 
treat an honest dilemma or confusion as a fault, but al- 
ways as something which 3^ou would like to solve, and in 
the solving of which you mean to ask for the pupil's co- 
operation. 

There are those who in questioning, especially when the 
class is large, are content to receive replies 
from such scholars as, by holding up their Sswering 
hands or otherwise, volunteer to answer. This <^®<^^p*^^^- 
is of course easy, but it is very unsatisfactory. Every 
scholar should know that he is liable to receive a question, 
and that the more careless and indifferent he seems, the 
more liable he will be to be challenged. Fasten your eye 
on the worst scholar in your class and be sure to carry him 
with you ; and measure your progress by what you can 



190 Lectures on Teaching. 

do with him. The eagerness of a teacher who is so im- 
jDatient of delay that he welcomes any answer he can get, 
and pushes on at once is somewhat ensnaring to him. We 
must avoid mistaking the readiness of a few clever chil- 
dren, who are prominent in answering, for the intellectual 
movement of the whole class. If you find yourself in the 
least danger of thus mistaking a part for the whole, put 
your questions to the scholars in turns now and then. It 
may perhaps help to remove an illusion. Or notice the 
scholars who fail oftenest, and bring them into the desk 
nearest you, and take care that they have twice as many 
questions as any one else. 

The art of putting a good question is itself a mental 
Mutual exercise of some value, and implies some 

questioning:, knowledge of the subject in hand. You are 
conscious of this when you yourselves interrogate your 
class. Bear this in mind, therefore, in its application to 
the scholars. Let them occasionally change their atti- 
tude of mind from that of receivers and respondents, to 
that of inquirers. Eemember Bacon's aphorism, Prudens 
qucBstio, dimidium scientice. You are half-way to the 
knowledge of a thing, when you can put a sensible ques- 
tion upon it. So I have sometimes heard a teacher 
towards the end of a lesson appeal to his pupils, and say 
to them one by one, " Put a question to the class on what 
we have learned ! " To do this, a boy must turn the sub- 
ject round in his mind a little and look at it in a new light. 
The knowledge that he is likely to be challenged to do it 
will make him listen to the lesson more carefully, and pre- 
pare himself with suitable questions; and whether he knows 
the answer or not, there is a clear gain in such an effort. 
The best teachers always encourage their scholars to ask 
questions. The old discipline in the mediaeval Univfi^r- 



Examining. 1 9 1 

sities of posers and disputations, in which one student pro- 
posed a thesis or a question, and another had to answer it, 
was not a bad instrument for sharpening the wits. In a 
modified way, it may be well to keep this in view, and to 
set scholars occasionally to question one another. 

Mr. Bain has said, " Much of the curiosity of children 
is a spurious article. Frequently it is a mere xheinauisi- 
di splay of egotism, the delight in giving tive spirit. 
trouble, in being pandered to and served. Questions are 
put, not from the desire of rational information, but for 
the love of excitement." And later on, he says that '^ The 
so-called curiosity of children is chiefly valuable as yield- 
ing ludicrous situations for our comic literature." We 
have thus, on very high authority, a reproof for childish 
inquisitiveness, and an apology for ignorant nurses, and 
for faineants and unsympathetic teachers in the use of the 
familiar formula, " Don't be tiresome and don't ask ques- 
tions." One might have hoped that this was one of the 
modes of treating children which was becoming obsolete, 
and that the teachers of the future would at least try to 
regard the curious and inquiring spirit among children, 
as one of the most hopeful of signs ; one of the principal 
things to be encouraged in early training ; one of their 
surest allies in the later development of thought. " For 
curiosity," Archbishop Whately says, " is the parent of 
attention, and a teacher has no more right to expect suc- 
cess in teaching those who have no curiosity to learn than 
a husbandman has who sows a field without ploughing it." 
I doubt whether any one of us can establish for himself 
a satisfactory code of rules, or a workable theory of dis- 
cipline, until he shall at least have made up his mind on 
the point thus raised. Is the childish curiosity a thing 
to be repressed as an impertinence and a nuisance^ or to 



192 Lectures on Teaching, 

be encouraged and welcomed as the teacher's best aux- 
iliary ? Is the habit of putting questions on what a child 
does not understand — of saying when a hard word occurs 
— " If you please will you explain that to me, I want to 
know '^ — a good habit or a bad one ? For my part, al- 
though I am quite aware that as a matter of discipline, 
mere impudence and forwardness — the putting of ques- 
tions for the sake of giving trouble to teachers — ought to 
be sternly discountenanced when they occur, it seems to 
me nevertheless true that for every time in which they 
occur, there are ten times in which the question of a child 
evinces real mental activity and a desire to know. 

It seems right to revert for a moment to the printed 
questions, such as are often found appended 
Catechisms. ^^ school-books ; and to the use of cate- 
chisms. The answers when learned by heart are open to 
the objections I have already urged : (1) That the lan- 
guage in which they are expressed has seldom or never 
any special value of its own to Justify its being committed 
to memory at all ; and (2) That even when learned by heart 
and remembered the sentences are generally incomplete ; 
for since part of the sentence lies in the question which 
is not learned by heart, the other part of the answer is 
a mere fragment, and of little or no use ; and (3) They 
assume that every question admits of but one form of 
answer ; which is scarcely true of one question in a hun- 
dred. But the worst effect of the use of printed catechisms 
is that produced upon the teacher. So far from en- 
couraging or helping him in the practice of questioning, 
the use of the book has precisely the opposite effect. I 
wish to speak with all respect of catechisms, some of which 
such as the Church Catechism and the Shorter Catechism 
of the General Assembly are connected with the history 



Learning and Remembering, i6i 

Aristotle or Bacon said^ they are driven to consider what 
they are likely to have said, or ought to have said/^ 

Thus, while we do well to mark deficiencies in any one 
particular form of memory among our pupils, 
and to supply appropriate exercises for reniov- iesson?donof 
ing them, we may be consoled to remember thSr'pnrp^Ie. 
that there are compensations for these de- 
ficiencies. It is most undesirable that all minds should 
conform, or be made to conform, to the same type, and so 
long as by some process or other — the verbal association 
or the logical association — the mind can be led back to the 
truth once known, and that the truth can be so recovered 
for the purpose for which it is now required, we may be 
well content. Only let us in teaching anything always give 
the impression that it will be wanted again. Let us re- 
member that our minds refuse to retain mere isolated facts 
which are not associated with something which we knew 
before, or which we hope to know hereafter. It is by fre- 
quent recapitulation, by recalling the work of other les- 
sons, by showing the relation between the past, the present, 
and the future stages of learning, that we encourage the 
student to make that effort of attention which is indis- 
pensable to remembering. This is why so many of the 
memory exercises which are given in schools are so barren 
of result. They lead to nothing of which the scholar can 
see the value. 

Up to a certain time in the course of learning any sub- 
ject its details seem dry and uninteresting, and 
are learned by a conscious and not always agree- JJ^arin?*' 
able effort. But there comes a moment, say fi^some^sub-^ 
in the learning of a language, when the learner i^ifers^^ "^ 
catches its spirit, receives a new idea through 
its means, actually uses it as an instrument of thought. 



i62 Lectures on Teaching. 

From that moment all the gerund-grinding^ the weary ex- 
ercises in vocabulary and grammar, have a new meaning 
and value. Knowledge has passed into the form of culture, 
and the memory exercises all prove to have served their 
purpose. So in arithmetic and mathematics, the moment 
the student perceives the principle of a rule, the process 
ceases to be mechanical and becomes intelligent. Here the 
fruit-bearing stage of the study comes earlier than in lan- 
guage, and it may be said that an elementary knowledge 
in this department, even if it stops short at the elements, 
is worth something. But if the fruit-bearing stage is not 
reached, if the study is not carried far enough to enable 
a student to receive or express a thought by means of the 
language, much of the time spent in acquiring the rudi- 
ments is absolutely wasted. There is nothing in the future 
life of the student to recall to him what he has learned, 
and much of it comes to nothing. 

Yet it would not be right to conclude that all knowl- 
edge which is forgotten has failed to serve a 

The uses of *^ ^ 

forgotten useful purpose. It may be forgotten in the 

form in which it has been received, but it may 
reappear in another. What is true in the vegetable world 
is often true in the world of spirit and of thought: "Ex- 
cept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
alone.^' It comes to nothing. The condition of its ger- 
minating and giving birth to something better than itself 
is that it shall die, and that it shall cease to retain the 
exact shape and character which it had at first. It is true 
that what is hastily acquired is hastily lost. What is con- 
sciously got up for some temporary purpose drops out of 
the mind and leaves no trace. Like JonaVs gourd, it comes 
up in a night and perishes in a night. It is not of this I 
speak. But all knowledge once honestly acquired and made 



Learning and Remembering. 163 

a subject of thought germinates^ even though in time it 
b^eeomes unrecognizable^ and seems to disappear altogether. 
It kas fulfilled its purpose, has deepened a conviction, has 
formed the legitimate ground for some conclusion on 
which in turn something else has been built; and it gives 
to the learner a sense of freedom and of elbow-room when 
in after-life he is dealing with it and cognate subjects, 
such as he could not possibly experience if the subject were 
wholly new to him. Eules serve their purpose if they 
form our habits of speech or of action, even though these 
habits are not consciously obedient to the rules, and al- 
though the rules themselves could not be restated in an 
explicit form. A demonstration in mathematics has done 
its work if, for the time, it gave an insight into the true 
method of reasoning, even though in later life we utterly 
fail to remember the theorem or the proof. So the exact 
character of a set of experimental illustrations in physics 
may be entirely forgotten; yet if the truth they illustrated 
was by their help fastened on the mind, and has subse- 
quently been seen in wider and more varied application, 
we have no right to say that the original effort has been 
wasted. 

The thoughts and experiences which make up the sum 
of our mental life in different years vary as much as the 
particles that compose the body. Some disappear and 
others take their place. But the life is the same so long 
as there is continuity and health. Personal identity con- 
sists, not in sameness of substance, but in continuity 
of life. So the relation of what you teach to the per- 
manent thoughts and work of the pupil consists in its ca- 
pacity for development into something not itself, but akin 
to itself, better than itself. Here then is one of the tests 
of our school-lessons. Grant that as school-lessons thev 



164 Lectures on Teaching, 

will be forgotten. Let us reconcile ourselves to this as 
inevitable, and ask in relation to everything which we 
teach : " Is it germinating and fruit-bearing, or not ? 
When the husk and shell shall have decayed, will there be 
anything left ? If so, what ? Will this bit of knowledge 
drop wholly out of the memory and leave no trace ? If so, 
I will not teach it, though it is in the text-book. Or will 
it, even though it looks crabbed and unpractical, make 
the perception of some larger and more useful truth easy ; 
will it leave some effect in the form of improved taste, 
truer judgment, or increased power to balance opposing 
facts ? If so, I will have it learned, even though I know 
it will be forgotten; and I will feel thankful that there 
is an art of wisely forgetting, as well as one of useful re- 
membering." 

The main instruments for obtaining knowledge and stor- 
ing the memory are three: oral exposition; self -tuition 

and reflection ; and book or task-work. Of the 
mentsof reaction in modern times against the too fre- 

(I) Oral in- quent use of books and tasks I have already 

spoken. And there can be little doubt that 
this reaction is right, and that as people get a worthier 
and truer perception of the nature of teaching, oral in- 
struction comes to be more valued. It is chiefly by means 
of the living voice that scholars can be really inspired; 
Its advanta- ^^ ^^ ^^^^ when the eyes meet and expression 
^^^' and gestures are seen, and tones are heard, that 

there arises that subtle and indefinable sympathy between 
teacher and taught, which is so essential to the intellectual 
life of the scholar. Then only can there be that adaptation 
of the matter to his wants"; the light glancing over unim- 
portant details, the rest and repetition over the more sig- 
nificant facts, the pause after what is exceptionally difii- 



Learning and Remembering. 165 

cult^ the nappy illustration, the argumentum ad hominem, 
the brisk and pointed question by which the teacher as- 
sures himself that he is being followed and understood. 
For all this the teacher wants fluency, fertility and quick- 
ness of resource, care in the choice of his language, a 
lucidus or do in his arrangement; a power of putting the 
same truth in several different lights; a quick insight in 
discovering what are the difficulties in the learner's mind, 
and in removing each difficulty when it occurs ; a certain 
tact which tells him when he may safely hasten, when he 
ought to linger, how fast he should go, and where he ought 
to stop. 

There is room then for something in the nature of a 
lecture, for the collective or class lesson, in connection with 
every subject you teach. 

But while such teaching is after all the great vitalizing 
instrument in education, we may not forget 
that, if too exclusively relied on, it has its 
drawbacks. There is first the danger lest the teacher 
should mistake the signs of collective animation for in- 
dividual progress. The whole may seem interested, and 
yet the units composing the whole may be very imperfectly 
taught. The sympathetic influence arising from the pres- 
ence of numbers, all of whom are working together to the 
same end, has the effect of awakening interest; but it has 
also the disadvantage of making this result seem greater 
than it is. Then a skilful oral teacher often anticipates 
difficulties, seeks to exemplify and explain everything, 
and in this way leaves the scholar too little to do for him- 
self. He stimulates attention, but he does not strengthen 
the habit of independent research. Too great reliance 
on the lecture system is apt also to lead pupils to reproduce 
everything which has been taught in 



i66 Lectures on Teaching. 

words. Besides, in the desire to make things interesting 
the teacher is fain to indulge in generalizations, in pic- 
turesque statements, which though true and right as the 
result of a knowledge of data, are extremely pretentious 
and unreal without such data. And the effect on a learner's 
mind of letting him see the whole without showing him 
the parts, and of encouraging him to accept a general in- 
duction without knowing the particulars on which it has 
been based, is sometimes very mischievous. 

These are dangers inseparably connected with the 
lecturing or expository system. They beset in a special 
way the most earnest and sympathetic teachers. They are 
to be guarded against (1) by the incessent use of oral ques- 
tions during the lesson ; (2) by requiring that note-taking 
during the lesson shall be limited to a few significant head- 
ings or technical words, and shall not reproduce the 
phrases or sentences of the teacher ; (3) by causing the 
substance of the whole lesson to be thought out, and in 
part written out after the delivery of it is finished ; (4) 
and, above all, by taking care to leave something sub- 
stantial for the learner to do, to find out, or to arrange for 
himself. 

For after all we may not, in our zeal for the improve- 
(2) seif-tui- nient of schools as places of instruction, for- 
tion. gg^ -j-}jgJ3 some of the best work of our own 

lives has taken the form of self -tuition. Consider the mul- 
titude of great and famous men who have struggled to 
master problems without any external aid, and consider 
too how precious and abiding knowledge won by our own 
efforts always is. It is true boys and girls do not come 
to school mainly for what is called self-tuition, but for 
help and guidance ; nevertheless, it is a good rule never 
to tell them what you could make them tell you ; never 



Learning aad Remembering. 167 

to do for them what they could do for themselves. Your 
teaching is not to supersede books, but rather to lead 
them to the right use of books. You have been studying, 
e.g., for a time the history of Edward III.; you want to 
gather it all up, and to give unity to the impressions of 
that particular period left on the minds of the learners. 
You give therefore a short catechetical lecture on the life 
of Wyclif, whom you select as a representative man of the 
time. But you would not do well even to try to make 
such a lecture exhaustive. Something should be left for 
the pupils to hunt out by themselves. A good teacher 
will say : " I have tried to sketch out the main incidents 
and drift of Wyclif's life, and I want you in the course 
of next week to write a biography, as complete as you can. 
You will find additional information in Longman's book, 
and in Chaucer's Prologue, in Pauli's Pictures of Old 
England, and in Palgrave's Merchant and the Friar. Do 
not think it necessary to follow the order I have sketched, 
or to make the same estimate of his character which I 
have given, if you find any facts which seem to tend the 
other way.'' Be sure that if, as the result of your teach- 
ing, your pupils seem indisposed to read for themselves, 
if they get the impression that all that needs to be known 
will be told them by yourself, then there is a fatal flaw even 
in the most animated oral lessons, and your methods need 
to be revised. 

Book-work for lessons has obvious advantages. It is 
definite. It puts into a concise and remem- .3. sook- 
berable form, — it focusses, so to speak, much work, 
of what is treated discursively in oral lessons. It can be 
revised again and again, as often as is necessary, until it 
is understood. Just as oral teaching is the main instru- 
ment for awakening intelligence, so book-work is the chief 



1 68 Lectures on Teaching. 

safeguard for accuracy, clearness of impression, and per- 
manence. We cannot do without either. It is, however, 
the best teachers who are most in danger of undervaluing 
set lessons from books. It is the worst, or at least the 
commonplace, the indolent, the uninspired teachers who 
have a constant tendency to overvalue them. As I have 
already said, it is the easiest of all forms of teaching to 
set a book lesson, and to say, " Go and prepare it.'' It is 
because it is so easy that a good teacher will always exer- 
cise special w^atchfulness over himself, and ask before set- 
ting a lesson, " Is this really the best way of effecting my 
purpose ? '' 

Before descending to detail and offering rules as to 
Its short- ^^^^" ^-"^^ book-work, it may be well to go back 
comings. ^ long way for a few moments, to ask you to 
consider how the relation of written work to intellectual 
exertion is illustrated in the Phcedrus, one of the dia- 
logues of Plato. Socrates is pointing out to one of his 
disciples how easy it is for a student to mistake means 
for ends, and to make the art of writing rather a substi- 
tute for mental effort than an aid to it. 

" I will tell you a story, my dear Phaedrus. Theuth was one of 
the ancient gods of Egypt, who was the first to invent arithmetic 
and geometry, and draughts and dice, but especially letters. Now 
Thamus was at this time the king of Egypt, and dwelt in the great 
city of Thebes. To him Theuth went and showed him all the arts 
which he had devised, and asked him to make them known to the 
rest of the Egyptians. Thamus asked him what was the use of 
each. But when they came to the letters, ' This knowledge, king,' 
said the deity, ' will make thy people wiser, for I have invented it 
both as a medicine for memory and for wisdom.' But the king an- 
swered : ' Most ingenious Theuth, it is for you to find out cunning 
inventions, it is for others to judge of their worth and their noble- 
ness. But methinks you, out of fondness for your own dis- 
covery, have attributed to it precisely the opposite effect to that 



Learning and Remembering. 169 

which it will have. For this invention will produce forgetfulness 
en the part of those who use it, since by trusting to writing they 
will remember outwardly by means of foreign marks, and not in- 
wardly by means of their own faculties. You are providing for 
my people the appearance rather than the reality of wisdom. For 
they will think they have got hold of something valuable when 
they only possess themselves of written words, and they will deem 
themselves Avise without being so.' What say you, my Phaedrus, 
did the king speak truly ? 

" ' I think, Socrates, that you can make up stories from Egypt 
or any other country you please, when you want to prove any- 
thing.' 

" Nay, but my dear Phsedrus, consider not where the story comes 
from, but whether it is true. For in the old days men were ready 
in the groves of Dodona, and in other places, to listen to an oak 
or a stone, provided it spoke the truth. And consider further, 
my Phsedrus, that written discourses have this disadvantage, they 
seem as if they were alive and possessed some wisdom, but if you 
ask them to explain anything they say, they preserve a solemn 
silence, or give at best but one and the selfsame answer. And 
once written, every discourse is tossed about and read alike by 
those who understand it and by those whom it in nowise con- 
cerns, and it knows not to whom to speak, and to whom to be 
silent. But after all, if writing is to be of any service, it must be 
to recall that which is already known and understood; and unless 
knowledge is shaped and fixed in a learner's soul, it is of no value 
at all." 

Perhaps this old Greek apologue may not be without 
a useful bearing upon the next practical ques- character- 

tion before us. " What are the conditions on i?*^<^s of good 

nome exer- 

which book-work and written exercises^ espe- "^^^• 
eially those done out of school^ are most likely to serve a 
useful educational purpose ? " 

The first of these conditions is that the exercises should 
not be too lons^. Children under twelve should ^. , ,^ 

^ Tney should 

not be asked to do home work which takes not i}e long, 
more than an hour, nor scholars of any age to do more 



1 70 Lectures on Teaching, 

than can "be fairly done in two hours. A good teacher 
will ask the parents to inform him if the time devoted to 
home exercises exceeds this limits and if it proves to do so, 
the lesson should be diminished in amount. Nor should 
lessons given to be prepared at home be such as require 
or presuppose intelligent assistance. It is not fair for a 
teacher to relegate much of his own work to the parent. 
It may be that your pupil is so circumstanced that he has 
no access at home to scholarly help ; and in that case you 
impose an unreasonable burden on him, and your task 
will not be done. x\nd if he has access to such help, the 
beneficent influence of an intelligent home will produce 
far more effect in ordinary intercourse than if father or 
mother is reduced to the role of a school assistant. Home 
has its own sacredness, and its own appropriate forms of 
training. Do not let the school exercises encroach too far 
upon it. 

Home lessons should be very definite, and admit of easy 
correction. They have no value, and they en- 

They should , i ,i xi 

teyery courage carelessness, unless they are thor- 

oughly examined. Think well then before 
setting them whether you have leisure and teaching power 
enough to examine them critically. And to this end let 
an exercise of this kind be as far as possible such as admits 
of only one way of being right, so that it may be perfectly 
clear if it is wrong how and why it is wrong. Eemember 
that exercises may be very easy to set, but very difficult to 
examine and test. J^othing is easier after a lesson than to 
say, " Write me to-night an account of what has been said 
to-day." But when the exercises some in you will find that 
there are a dozen different forms of right and a hundred 
ways in which it is possible to be wrong ; and that to 
bring the merits and defects clearly before the mind of 



Learning and Remembering. 171 

your pupils implies discussion and lengthy personal in- 
terviews with each child, which, however valuable, take 
too much time. And unless you have the time to spare, 
do not try it ; but keep to lists, names, definitions, facts, 
of which you can say at once whether they are right or 
wrong. 

One great advantage of very definite lessons is that they 
often admit of being expeditiously corrected xhey should 
in class, by the method of mutual revision. reSycorrec- 
The exercise books change hands, and each *^°^- 
scholar takes a pencil for the marking of mistakes, while 
the teacher publicly goes through the questions, causing 
the answers to be read, and criticising them when they 
are wrong. After errors have been marked, they are 
handed back to the original writers. This is not the only 
way of correcting exercises, and many occasions arise 
when more miinute personal supervision is needed on the 
part of the teacher. But it economizes time, it furnishes 
the occasion for a most effective form of recapitulatory 
lesson, and it awakens interest by putting the scholars into 
a new attitude of mind — that of critics. Moreover, it is 
far more effective as a means of correction than the labor- 
ious marking of exercise books by the teacher after hours. 
For such commentaries as there is time to write on the 
margin are necessarily very concise and incomplete, and 
not unfrequently remain unread. It is obvious, however, 
that this plan of mutual correction in class, though I be- 
lieve it might be more largely adopted with advantage, 
presupposes that the exercises are very definite in their 
character, such as memory-work, translation, and arith- 
metic, and is inapplicable to essays or general composi- 
tion. 



172 Lectures on Teaching. 

Two distinct objects may be contemplated in the set- 
ting of home tasks. The one, that the lessona 
be^suppie- SO learned shall be preparatory, and give the 
Sther'Sian materials for to-morrow^s lesson ; the other^ 
preparatory. ^^^^ ^^^^ should be supplementar}^, and should 
have a bearing on the school-teaching of the previous day. 
There is an obvious sense in which any given lesson may 
be said to fulfil both purposes. N'evertheless, your minds 
should be clearly made up as to the purpose which you 
think the more important of the two. One view on this 
point is well expressed by Mr. D. E. Fearon in his very 
able and useful work on School Inspection. He says of 
geography and history, that " matters of fact should be 
acquired by pupils out of school, in readiness for the les- 
sons. It is a deplorable waste of teaching power, and is 
ruinous both to teacher and taught, to let the teacher^s 
time and vigor be spent in telling the children mere rudi- 
mentary facts which they can gain from a text-book. . . . 
At Marlborough and Rugby the scholars are expected to 
get up those mere elements out of school, and the business 
of the master is one which presupposes in his scholars an 
acquaintance with such rudiments ; it is to test, illustrate, 
amplify and give interest to such presupposed elementary 
knowledge." 

Now grant that the distinction here made is a right one, 
that all the interesting and intelligent work has to be done 
in school, and all the drudgery out of it, it is still an open 
question whether the task of learning names and facts 
may not be greatly lightened by coming after rather than 
before your lesson. It is rather hard on a child to expect 
him to deal thus with all the dry bones, until you come 
and clothe them with flesh and with life. I hold that 
however judicious this method may be in some exceptional 



Learning and Remember tns[. 173 

cases, it is a safe general rule that out-of-door exercises 
should be designed less often to prepare the way for a 
coming lesson than to deepen and fix the memory of a past 
lesson. Children learn with much more zest and interest 
that of which they can see the bearing and the use than 
that which they are merely told will have a bearing and a 
use hereafter. 

So if I were going to give a lesson on the geography 
of Switzerland, I would not require the schol- m^st^ative 
ars the day before to get up a list of the examples. 
towns, the cantons, or the mountains. But I would give 
a general oral description, would describe by map or model 
its physical configuration, would try to awaken some in- 
terest in the hardy, thrifty, liberty-loving people who 
lived in it ; and then at the end of the lesson would re- 
quire a map of the country and a few written data about 
it to be prepared as a home lesson. So in arithmetic, I 
would not, if to-morrow's lesson were to be on a reducing 
fractions to a common denominator, say to the scholars, 
" Now to-night you are to learn by heart a new rule, and 
I will explain it and show you how to apply it to-morrow." 
It is in my judgment a better plan to begin by taking a 
problem and working it out inductively on the black- 
board, to show as you go on the need of each process and 
its fitness for the end proposed ; and then at the end of it 
to say : " What we have thus found is contained in a rule 
which I want you to learn and write out. Here also are 
three examples to be worked in the same manner, which 
you will do to-night.'' So with a new grammatical dis- 
tinction, say the ablative absolute, I would give an expla- 
nation, seek to make it clear by a few striking examples, 
and then give out as a home lesson the task (1) of learn- 
ing the rule or definition by heart — ^provided it were such 



1 74 Lectures on Teaching. 

a rule or definition as fulfilled the conditions we have al- 
ready laid down — and (2) of finding ont in a given page or 
chapter as many examples of the ablative absolute as pos- 
sible. 

I am far from saying that there are no cases in which it 
is good to give out a home exercise in anticipation of to- 
morrow's work. You want^ e.g., to have an ode of Horace 
or a fable of La Fontaine prepared to-morrow. N'ow if 
you say to a child, " Learn this, and be prepared to-mor- 
row with a complete translation of it ; '' and you expect 
then to find him able to account for all the idioms and 
allusions, what you are asking is somewhat unreasonable. 
The complete understanding of the whole passage is pre- 
cisely that which your teaching is meant to give him. You 
must not throw upon him so much responsibility. But it 
is well to say : " We are going to take to-morrow the 
twelfth ode of the second book, and we shall read it in 
class together. Find out therefore to-night from the dic- 
tionary all the words you do not already know.'' That is 
a perfectly legitimate requirement. If that is fulfilled, 
you have some material to work with. You read it line 
by line, you elicit by questioning as much grammar and 
idiom as is known, you supply the new facts, the illustra- 
tion of new grammatical difficulties, the allusions, the 
significance of the metaphors, the turns of happy expres- 
sion ; and then, when you have done this, you say, " To- 
night I shall expect you to write me a full and careful 
translation of the whole ; and here are a dozen words — 
proper names, idioms, or allusive phrases — which you will 
underline, and on each of which you must write a special 
comment or explanation." 

Thus, you will see, the home or evening work which 
may legitimately be set is partly preparatory and partly 



Learning and Remember ing. 175 

supplementary to your class teaching. But the best part 
of it is supplementary. And I have no doubt that, as a 
general rule, the chief value of written exercises is to give 
definiteness to lessons already learned, and to thrust them 
home into the memory rather than to break new ground. 
Kindle interest and sympathy first. Let the scholars see 
what you are aiming at, and catch something of your own 
interest and enthusiasm in the pursuit of truth, and then 
they will be prepared to take some trouble in mastering 
those details which they see to be needed in order to give 
system and clearness to their knowledge. But he who ex- 
pects children to master with any earnestness details of 
which they do not see the purpose, is asking them to make 
bricks without straw, and will certainly be disappointed. 



176 Lectures on Teaching. 



VI. EXAMINING. 

The whole subject of Examinations looms very large in 
Examina- ^^^^ vision of the public and is apt to be seen 
tions. Q^\^ qI j^g i^^Q proportions, mainly because it is 

the one portion of school business which is recorded in 
newspapers. We shall perhaps arrive at right notions about 
it more readily, if we first consider the business of ex- 
amining as wholly subordinate to that of education, and as 
part of the work of a school. If we are led to just conclu- 
sions on this point, we may then hope to consider with 
profit the eif ect of the tests and standards applied to school 
work by outside bodies, by University Examiners, or in 
competitions for the public service. 

First, however, we may be fitly reminded that the art of 
puttins: questions is one of the first and most 

The art of r & u 

putting: necessary arts to be acquired by a teacher. To 

questions. "^ .... 

know how to put a good question is to have 

gone a long way towards becoming a skilful and efficient 

instructor. It is well, therefore, to ask ourselves what 

are the conditions under which catechising can be most 

effective. 

The object of putting questions to a child whom we are 

instructing may be — 

(1) To find out what he knows, by way of preparing 
him for some further instruction 

(2) To discover his misconceptions and difficulties. 

(3) To secure the activity of his mind and his co-opera-. 
tion while you are in the act of teaching him. 



' Examining. 209 

him who wrote that " the x\mericans were so grateful for 
the services of George Washington that they made him a 
peer/' ought to be reckoned as a fault to be punished^ be- 
cause in each case it is a mere guess, put out rather dis- 
honestly with the chance of its being right or with the 
deliberate intention of practising on the possible ignorance 
or carelessness of the examiner. 

Even in class work, the course of oral questioning may 
sometimes be advantageously interrupted, by requiring the 
answer to be given by all the students immediately in 
writing instead of word of mouth. If you want to know 
whether all the class knows a French verb, or a number 
of dates, or a group of names, this is an expeditious and 
very thorough method. And here, when you have exam- 
ined the note-books by the plan of mutual correction or 
otherwise, the result may well be tabulated in a numerical 
form. But in ordinary oral questioning of a class and 
estimating its result, I do not think it is quite possible 
to adopt the arithmetical mode of measurement with per- 
fect exactness, and therefore I would not use it at all, but 
employ other symbols such as Excellent, Good, Fair, Mod- 
erate, which are better fitted to describe general impres- 
sions. 

And yet now the most important thing remains to be 
said. This whole problem of examinations and ^^^ j^prauty 
the right way of conducting them and pre- of^ezamina- 
paring for them touches very nearly the 
morality of the school life. Look well to the influence 
which the examinations you use are having, on the ideal 
of work and duty which your scholar is forming. Ask 
yourself often if that which will enable him to do best 
in examination is also that which is best for him to learn. 
Watch how the prospect of the examination tells upon 



2IO Lectures on Teaching. \ 

his methods of study, his sense of honor, his love of truth. 
Determine that whatever happens, you will not pay too 
heavy a price for success in examinations. Discounte- 
nance resolutely all tricks, all special study of past papers, 
and of the idiosyncrasies of examiners, and all speculations 
as to what it will and what it will not "pay^' to learn. 
It is because sufficient regard is not paid to these consid- 
erations, that many thoughtful persons now are fain to 
denounce examinations altogether, as the bane of all true 
learning, and as utterly antagonistic to the highest aims 
of a teacher. There ought, however, to be no such an- 
tagonism. In their proper place, examinations have done 
great service to education, and are capable of doing yet 
more. But they can only do this on one condition. Let 
us make sure that for us, and for our pupils, success in 
examinations shall not be regarded as an end, but as a 
means towards the higher end of real culture, self-knowl- 
edge and thoughtfulness. And let us keep in mind for 
them and for ourselves the old sound maxim : " Take care 
of everything but the examination, and let the examina- 
tion take care of itself." 



Preparatory Training, 21T 



VII. PREPARATORY TRAININa. 

I HOPE the subject of very early instruction will not 
appear to any one here to be insignificant or preparatory 
beneath notice. In the higher departments of training:. 
instruction we want to have at our disposal faculties which 
have been disciplined and brought into active and sys- 
tematic exercise ; and it would be well if we could pre- 
suppose that all this discipline has been obtained in the 
preparatory school. But there are two very good reasons 
why teachers in Grammar schools or public schools should 
try to form clear notions about elementary and even in- 
fant training. First, because that training is often in- 
complete, and needs to be prolonged into an advanced 
course. It is not a creditable thing that the 
simple arts of good reading, spelling, and the^Jtt^Jtion 
legible writing should be so despised and dis- master?*'°^" 
regarded that youths who have been at public 
schools are often inferior in these respects to the children 
of National Schools. Year by year, many young men who 
come up to be examined for commissions in the army, and 
in the higher departments of the Civil Service — young 
men who are presumed to have had a liberal education, 
are rejected for bad spelling ; and their writing, as I, 
an old examiner, have good reason to know, is almost 
ostentatiously slovenly and illegible ; the scribble of men 
who think good writing a thing for clerks and shopmen, 
and beneath the consideration of gentlemen. One rea- 
son therefore for asking your attention to these elemen- 



212 Lectures on Teaching. 

tary matters is because provision ought to be more sys- 
tematically made in higher schools for teaching them 
properly, if the preparatory school has failed to do it ; and 
in cases where the preparatory training has been good, 
care should at least be taken to see that the lessons shall 
not be lost, but that the higher course shall strengthen 
rather than destroy the neat and accurate habits which 
have been once acquired. 

Another reason why I hope you will not think these 
simple matters are beneath your attention is that even 
the highest class of teachers are often called on to or- 
ganize and superintend preparatory departments ; or at 
least to test their work and see that they fulfil their proper 
purpose. They should therefore make up their own minds 
as to what is the difference between good and bad early 
training, and how to discern that difference. They are 
called on, if not to be the educators of very young chil- 
dren, at least to be the critics and guides of those who 
undertake this work. They suffer if the preparatory train- 
ing has been unskilful ; and they should be ready when 
occasion arises to point out to the teachers in preparatory 
schools, how their work ought to be done. 

Now it would be beyond my proper province to attempt 
here an analysis of the parts respectively to 
1)6 kept S ° be played by the senses and the intellect in 
infant dis- the development of a child. That the way to 
cip ine. ^1^^ understanding is through the senses ; 

that in early childhood the senses are more active than 
the intelligence, and that the first teaching should there- 
fore be addressed to the eye and the ear rather than to 
the reflective powers, are truisms, on which we need not 
dwell. The processes by which sensation leads the way to 
knowledge, and knowledge to inference and reasoning, are 



Preparatory Training, 213 

some of the most fertile subjects of inquiry, and will be 
duly brought before you by my successor, as parts of men- 
tal philosophy in its bearing on teaching. Here, however, 
it may suffice to say that one of the first things needed in 
early training is to teach a child how to use his fingers, 
his ears, and his eyes ; and that whether he does this well 
or ill makes a great difference to him all through his later 
course. 

The child who has learned in infancy to look steadily 
at the forms and aspects of the things near r^^^ training 
him, is later in life a better observer of nature, °^ ^^^ senses^ 
and student of physical science. He gets more enjoyment, 
and more culture from seeing pictures, or fine scenery, 
than if he had been accustomed to gaze aimlessly and 
vaguely at the things around him. He who has been 
taught, by exercises ever so childish, steadiness of hand 
and precision of touch, is better fitted hereafter to be a 
good draughtsman or musician. And no training of ear 
to the finer differences of vocal inflection and expression 
is without a very important bearing on literary perception 
and taste. We need not concern ourselves here with 
subtle speculations as to the exact priority or interde- 
pendence of sensual and intellectual perception. '^ Niliil in 
intelUdu quod non prius in sensu," may or may not be a 
tenable dogma in speculative philosophy ; but we know 
at least that the development of greater sensitiveness to 
sight and sound is accompanied, almost necessarily, with 
the development of intellectual power ; that outward ex- 
pression is a great help to inw^ard clearness ; and that 
whether we call the quickening of physical sensibility a 
part of lower or of higher education, it is too important a 
factor in the life and usefulness of a man to be disregarded 
by any teacher whether high or low. 



214 Lectures on Teaching. 

In the later stages of education, you do not so much 
concern yourself with conscious training of the senses, in 
the form of direct exercises, although you know that some 
studies, notably botany, chemistry, drawing and music, 
have special value in making observation and hearing ac- 
curate. And you should not lose sight of the fact that 
over and above the practical or intellectual uses of these 
studies, there is a distinct gain from them in the form of 
a finer sensibility, and of new capacity for interpreting 
and enjoying the world your pupil has come to live in. 
Still, within the ordinary domain of school life, the ex- 
ercises which specially concern the use of the senses are 
(1) the discipline of the Infant School, and (2) the arts 
of reading and writing and drawing as practised later. To 
these we must confine our present inquiries. 

The necessity for more definite and intentional training 
The Kinder- ^"^ ^^^ senses has been insisted on with much 
garten. earnestness by Pestalozzi, by Eousseau, and by 

George Combe, and you will do well to study, in some de- 
tail, what those writers have said on the subject. But it 
is to Frobel that we owe the clearest recognition of the 
main principle, and the most systematic effort to reduce 
that principle to practical application. His method of 
infant training, to which the rather fanciful name of Kin- 
dergarten has been given, has been expounded with much 
care and clearness by Miss Shirreff, by Miss Maning, and 
in German by the Baroness Billow, all of whom have the 
true spirit of discipleship ; for they begin by reverencing 
their master, and end by interpreting his message to the 
world more clearly than he was able to explain it for him- 
self. 

Frobel devised a series of exercises for young children 
beginning at the age of three or four. He knew that the 



Preparatory Training. 215 

first things children want to do are to see, to handle, to 
move about, and to exercise their senses, and he sought 
to arrange a set of simple and appropriate employments, 
with a conscious educational purpose, and in careful 
obedience to the suggestions of Nature. To the youngest 
he gives a box of wooden bricks, to arrange, and to build 
up, in imitation of the model designs, made before him by 
the teacher. Then come exercises in the careful folding 
of colored papers into different forms ; the plaiting of 
straw or strips of paper into patterns, the pricking, or 
sewing with colored thread, of little pictured diagrams ; 
the tracing of lines gradually increasing in length, num- 
ber, and complexity, so as to develop, unexpectedly, new 
and pleasing geometrical designs. Besides these Frobel 
provides organized games, little dramatic performances, 
dances and physical movements of a rhythmic kind, to 
simple music, and conversational lessons in which the lit- 
tle ones are made to talk about a picture, to assume and 
act out their several parts, and to help one another piece 
together their experiences of a farm-yard or a garden, of 
a street or'of a kitchen. I have seen many such little ex- 
periments in Kindergarten schools, or rather in those in- 
fant schools which have a kindergarten department ; and 
there is no doubt that the system, in the hands of bright 
and sympathetic teachers, has many very substantial ad- 
vantages. Frobel's method certainly increases itsadvan- 
the happiness of little children ; and this is ^^^^^• 
a clear gain. It greatly diminishes the difficulty of the 
problem, how to fill up their time at school ; for a long 
day spent in any one of the ordinary forms of instruction 
is very wearisome to young children ; and teachers have 
long been wanting to know how to vary the employments 
of infants in a school, so as to keep them under discipline. 



2i6 Lectures on Teaching. 

and at the same time to avoid tiring and overstraining 
them with lessons, and giving them unpleasant associa- 
tions with the thought of learning. To such teachers, the 
little gifts and exercises of Frobel are a great boon. In- 
terspersed among the graver employments, they absorb 
the attention and powers of the little ones, without giv- 
ing them any sense of fatigue. Infants learn obedience, 
fixed attention, accuracy of eye, steadiness of hand ; they 
learn to count, and to know the nature of color and of 
form. They are exercised in imitation, in invention, and 
in the elements of drawing and design. And all these 
lessons are learned in the best of all ways, without be- 
ing considered as lessons ; not indeed in the shape of les- 
sons at all, but rather as so much play. They are in fact 
organized play, with a conscious and direct educational 
purpose. But this purpose is not obtruded before the 
children, who think that they are being amused when in 
fact they are being systematically taught. Experience 
shows that children who have been discijDlined on this sys- 
tem are found (1) to have got the rudiments of writing, 
counting, and drawing, and to be better prepared for the 
ordinary subjects of school instruction than others ; and 
(2) to have obtained in an indirect way a good deal of use- 
ful training which shows itself in quickened sensibility, 
and prompter intelligence. 

Hence I strongly recommend those of you whose ad- 
vice is likely to be asked as to the organization of pre- 
paratory schools for very young children to make your- 
selves acquainted with some of the books I have named, 
and to be ready to take advantage of the good parts of 
the system. At the same time, I may venture to add two 
or three cautions, which the writers of books on the 
system do not give. I do not blame them for this. The 



Preparatory Training. 217 

best work in the world is not clone by criticism, but by 
enthusiasm. The sort of cold-blooded and balanced esti- 
mation of the good and bad points in a system, which is 
appropriate for ns in this place, is not to be expected or 
indeed to be desired on the part of those earnest men and 
women, who in rebelling against the inert and unintelli- 
gent discipline to which little children are often subjected, 
have perhaps exaggerated the value of Frobel's method. 
Let us admit that if they had not seen that method in a 
very strong — perhaps even an untrue light, — they would 
not have made so many converts, or done nearly so much 
good. 

So I would warn you first that it is very useless to try 

to adopt this system unless you have some one 

, , . . Its success 

to work it, who has faith in it, and the special depends on 

^ the teacher's 

aptitude and enthusiasm which will help her personal 

to make the best of it. In the hands of spir- 
itless teachers, who look on it merely as a system which 
anybody can adopt ; and who just seek to carry out the 
methods in a book of diagrams and patterns, which de- 
scribes Frobel's gifts and games in regular sequence, the 
results will be very poor. Much joyousness of nature, ver- 
satility and sympathy, and rather unusual power of tell- 
ing a story, and of encouraging children to talk to her and 
to one another are indispensable in the teacher, if the sys- 
tem is to have its proper efPect. 

There is one fault to which exactly the opposite kind of 
teachers — the most sympathetic and enthu- 

... . .' ^ T XI. . . X TheUmits 

siastic, are specially prone ; and that is to to its use- 
make too much of the system, and to expect 
from it more than it can do. Your thoroughgoing Kin- 
dergdrtner is not content to make the Frobel exercises an 
element in the school life of a child. He wants to make 



2i8 Lectures on Teaching. 

them the whole. He will keep children up to the age of 
six or seven engaged all day in straw-plaiting or paper- 
folding, in dancing round a maypole, and in singing and 
reciting childish verses. He is apt to mistake means for 
ends. He has got hold of a novel and pleasiug instrument 
for occupying the attention of the children ; and he 
thinks that so long as they are orderly and attentive, all 
is well. He keeps the little ones looking at diagrams and 
pictures, when he might be teaching them to read. He 
employs them in making marks, of which they see no 
meaning, when their faculties of imitation might just as 
well be exercised in a -writing lesson. He allows them to 
spend much time in the manufacture of woven patterns 
and paper ornaments, which the child sees to have no value 
in themselves, long after the time when the elementary 
training of hand and eye might just as well be applied to 
drawing, or sewing, or knitting, or something else which 
the children know to be of real use. Children know very 
well that they come to school to learn. They want to do 
something of which they can see the purpose. They are 
not being well prepared for the serious work of school, 
or of after life, if all that they are required to do looks 
like amusement and play. The Kindergarten gives them 
nothing which seems like work ; it does not train them to 
overcome difficulties. 

Let us be clear on this point. Do not let us manu- 
facture difficulties under a notion that we have to brace 
and harden children's natures ; but, on the other hand, 
do not let us elaborately keep all difficulties out of sight. 
This is just as grave an error. Let us admit the paramount 
necessity of the training of faculties. Nay, let us go 
farther, and confess that nine teachers out of ten 
err by overlooking this view of their work, and supposing 



Preparatory Training, 219 

(;bat the whole of their business is to impart instniction. 
Nevertheless we must bear in mind that school life is too 
short to justify us in spending much time in training, for 
the sake of training; and that when we have got a power 
or faculty into vigorous action the sooner we set it to work 
on some of the practical joroblems of life the better. 

Besides, though the faculty of observation is a very 
useful one, it is quite possible to exaggerate . ^ 

' 1 • ^ The haWt of 

its importance. In the long run it is a less observation 

not of para- 
valuable factor in the intellectual life than the mount im- 
portance. 
habit of reflection. And the Kindergarten 

does little or nothing to encourage reflection. It helps 
children to appreciate more clearly the visible and the 
concrete ; but it scarcely conducts them a step towards 
the abstract and the invisible. They learn to look, to 
hear, to act in concert ; but all the thinking, and nearly 
all the talking is done by the teacher for them. This is 
not a fault in the system, but it is one of the limits to its 
usefulness, and we must bear it in mind. 

In studying Frobel's life and doings, you will, I think, 
respect his enthusiasm, and admire his child- pj-oheiand 
like sympathetic nature. You will not, I ^swork. 
think, come to the conclusion that he took a large or very 
sound view of the purpose of education as a whole. He 
was not a scholar, and to the last he somewhat under- 
valued the sort of knowledge which is to be got from 
books. But he saw with intense clearness certain simple 
truths which bear on the discipline and happiness of little 
children. Let us be thankful for such seers and prophets, 
even if they only give us half-truths. There is something 
touching in the remark of the Baroness Billow, one of 
his most earnest disciples, '^ The heavenly light given to 
a man seldom sjDreads its ray over the whole of his being ; 



2 20 Lectures on Teaching. 

Lut only lights up the field whereon he is called to build/' 
It is well for each of ns if the light is clear and steadfast 
enough to show us the duty which we can do best. For 
Frobel the field thus illuminated extended over the heart 
and the life of childhood, the beginnings of knowing and 
thinking, the functions and the duties of the primary 
teacher — a region which indeed has definite frontiers, but 
is wide and varied enough to satisfy a much more daring 
ambition than his. 

I repeat, then, that whenever you have the opportunity 
of exercising influence over a preparatory school, you will 
do well to see that in reasonable measure the methods of 
Frobel are adopted. They will have value up to the age of 
seven if judiciously incorporated with other forms of early 
instruction, although, for the reasons I have given, I do 
not think that they should be allowed to supersede such 
instruction. 

And now let us gather together a few of the plainer re- 
sults of experience in reference to the teaching of the 
rudimentary arts of reading, spelling, and writing. 

One of the first difficulties with which we are confronted 
is the fact that our language presents so many 
orthographical and phonetic anomalies. In 
this respect it differs notably from French, in which there 
are comparatively few, from German, in which there are 
fewer, and from Italian, in which there are scarcely any. 
We all know that ours is a composite speech, a conglom- 
erate of many languages ; that the portion of it which 
was spoken before it was written — the purely English por- 
tion and the earlier derivatives from Latin and from 
Norman French — is full of queer and capricious spelling ; 
while other portions of it, the Greek and the Latin de- 
rivatives, which have come to us later through the me- 



Preparatory Training. 221 

dmm of literature^ are^ on the whole^ spelled according 
to a consistent system, and present little or no difficulty. 
If we want an exliaustive and very entertaining summary 
of the chief difficulties presented by our English system 
of spelling, I may refer you to Prof. Meikle John's clever 
little book, " The Problem of Teaching to Eead." Here 
it may suffice briefly to indicate the nature of the diffi- 
culty which has to be surmounted. 

There is first of all our anomalous alphabet. And it 
would be easy to show that it has every fault 
that an alphabet can have. A perfect alpha- aSes^/Se 
bet should, it may well be argued, have a JJIi^^^ 
single and fixed character for every single in- 
divisible elementary sound. It should have such com- 
pound characters for composite or diphthongal sounds as 
would indicate clearly the elements of which they are 
composed. It should also have similar characters for 
analogous or related sounds. Nothing is easier than to 
lay down these conditions, and to see that our alphabet 
violates every one of them. It is at the same time re- 
dundant and defective. It has not enough characters, and 
those which it has it does not make the best of ; e.g. : 

(1) A single and indivisible consonant is sometimes 
expressed by a clumsy combination of two letters instead 
of one character, as tlim, thine, sJionld.. 

(2) There are often tw^o or more ways of writing the 
same sound, as /ancy, p/iilosophy, and rough. Duty, 
Jieutet, leivd, and heautj. 'Ra.tion, sure, shall, viaous. 

(3) The same letter has many sounds, as father, fan, 
fate, fall. 

(4) The alphabet disguises altogether the true elements 
of composite sounds : the sound of oil is not made up of 
and i, but of au and ee. 



22 2 Lectures on Teaching, 

(5) It fails altogether to indicate the true relations be- 
tween cognate sounds ; the i in pine is called the long 
sound of the i in pin; but these sounds are not related ; 
the true lengthening of pm is into peen, not pine. So 
the p is related to the I in the same manner as the t to 
the d or the s to the z; but there is no such similarity of 
characters as to represent these relations. 

(6) It sometimes gives us a compound sound expressed 
by a single letter, as Ee;ect, conceal. 

(7) It more often gives a group of letters to represent 
a single indivisible sound — Daugliiei, tlwugli. 

(8) The names of the letters are very misleading as 
representations of their powers, as Gee for G. Aitch for 
H. Double you for W. 

Such is only a part of the indictment against the Eng- 
lish Alphabet. Shall we try to get up a society 
ref orm^of the for reforming it ? Well, I for one should not. 
Alphabet. j^'irst, because the task is so formidable. To 
do it effectually we must have 38 characters instead of 26 ; 
we must cease to employ many of the letters we now use, 
and the whole aspect of the written language must be al- 
tered. And even when the written language had been 
truly conformed to the speech of the capital and of edu- 
cated persons, it would remain untrue and non-phonetic in 
Yorkshire and Devonshire, and even in Scotland and Ire- 
land, unless all provincialisms and dialectic varieties are to 
be obliterated ; which is neither probable, nor in itself 
eminently desirable. Then the price we should pay for 
such a reform would be very heavy. "We of this genera- 
tion, who have been educated in the anomalous system, 
would learn the new one, I grant, without much difficulty ; 
and for our lifetimes both the old and the new literature 
would be read. But to the next generation, educated on 



Preparatory Training, 223 

the more rational principle, our present spelling wonld 
be hopelessly unintelligible, and the whole of our past lit- 
erature, everything that is not worth re-printing, would 
become a foreign language, and would remain unread by 
our successors. It is not easy to see hoM' such a result 
could be avoided ; yet, if it occurred, the gain would be 
enormously counterbalanced by the loss. 

Again, the difficulties of our present system may easily 
be exaggerated, and have been exaggerated. The sylla- 
bles which are not spelt phonetically are, relatively to the 
whole language, not very numerous. 

Our alphabet also is a historic one, and like the British 
constitution represents historic growth. Its very anomalies 
throw a great deal of light on the history and origin of 
words. No doubt the spelling is occasionally misleading 
too, on this point. If I lay down a rule, that whenever 
/ is represented by jpTi, or h by cli, the word is Greek ; or 
that whenever c represents s and commences a syllable the 
word is Latin ; or that whenever w comes before h it is 
English, we may find exceptions to the rule ; yet in nine- 
teen cases out of twenty the rule is good ; and thus the 
very inconsistencies of our alphabet often furnish a key 
to the meaning or history of a word. 

Lastly, I would not advise spending much time on an 
effort for a sweeping legal reform in our al- 
phabet, because there is little or no chance of hopeSsr 
its success. Consider what has happened in *^ erpnse. 
the matter of decimalizing our weights and measures. Our 
present arithmetical tables are far more clumsy and in- 
defensible than our alphabet. They give a great deal more 
of trouble to teachers, and of mental entanglement to pu- 
pils. Moreover it would be a far easier process to reform 
them. Many proposals for adopting the French sysUme 



2 24 Lectures on Teaching. 

metrique, or at least for decimalizing and simplifying our 
present weights and measures, have been made from time 
to time. But the English people and its parliament have 
steadily opposed all these projects, and we seem at this 
moment much farther from the adoption of a rational and 
simple system of compound arithmetic than we were 
twenty years ago. And we may conclude, in like manner, 
that though ingenious proposals will be made from time 
to time, for the amendment, on philosophical principles, 
of English spelling, those proposals have little chance of 
being carried out in our time. By the general consent 
of literary and learned people we may fairly hope that 
some improvements may be effected and the more gro- 
tesque anomalies removed. But the conservative instincts 
of the nation in matters like this are very strong ; and I 
think it in the highest degree unlikely that for the sake 
of saving a little trouble to teachers, the nation will put 
itself to the inconvenience of adopting a new alphabet and 
making a break in the continuity of its own literary life. 
So we may make up oTir minds that any effort to ob- 
Theian- ^^^^^^ ^ complete and scientific reform in the 

exfs^s' has\o English alphabet, will probably be futile ; and 
be taught. j;hat any other than a complete reform would 
hardly be worth contending for. It may go a little way 
to reconcile some of us to this conclusion, if we reflect 
that after all the anomalies and difficulties do not seem so 
great to a little child as to us. He accepts the spelling you 
teach him, on your authority, and he is very little im- 
pressed by its want of philosophic precision. You spell 
the .word mat, and as there are three distinct sounds rep- 
resented by three distinct letters, which are tolerably uni- 
form in their powers, the word satisfies you. And then 
you spell the word through, and you feel it to be unsatis- 



Preparatory Training. 225 

factory. Tlie first word is spelt pliilosopliically, the sec- 
ond is spelt unpliilosopliically. But to the -child, though 
one is a little easier than the other, it is just as arbitrary. 
He receives them both on your authority. To him it is all 
alike mysterious. Neither his moral nor his phonetic sen- 
sibilities are wounded by unphilosophical spelling. You 
will have to tell him the one word twice over and the other 
only once. But when once thoroughly known, it is known 
for life, and he will not be troubled by its anomalous char- 
acter. Nay, he will never know that there is any anomaly 
in it, until in the fulness of time he is old enough to be- 
come a member of the Philological Society or the Spelling 
Eeform Association, and to have his critical faculty called 
into action under its auspices. 

It is, then, the English language as it is, and not as it 
might be, nor even as it ought to be, that we 
have to take for better, for worse, and to teach teaching 
in the best way we can. How shall we set ^^^ ^^^* 
about it ? There are, as is well known, three dijfferent 
methods : 

(1) There is the method of teaching the Alphabet first, 
then proceeding to words of two letters, then to words of 
three, and so on in order. This is a method of synthesis. 

(2) There is what is called the Looh and say method, 
which begins by showing children words, and requiring 
them to be recognized as a whole and pronounced, before 
calling attention to the letters of which they are com- 
posed. This is a method of analysis. 

(8) There is the Phonic method, which avoids the names 
of the letters at first altogether, and simply seeks to teach 
their powers. Groups of words are given in which the 
same sounds occur^ and these words are decomposed into 



2 26 Lectures on Teaching. 

their elementary sounds, whicli children are taught to utter 
separately. 

Now, in favor of the last method, it may be truly urged 
that the real composition of the utterances we call words, 
is better seen by rendering them into their elementary 
sounds, than by calling those elements by arbitrary names. 
That is quite true. But the objection to it is that the 
same letter has so many different sounds, that even if I 
learn to identify each with a sound and not a name, I 
shall be constantly making mistakes, e.g., you give the 
significance of I, and illustrate it by lend, lo, ill, and full, 
and then you come to a word like should, in which it is 
not pronounced at all. Writers of Phonic reading books 
get over this difficulty by printing in italics the letters 
which are not sounded, and by printing over those vowels 
or combinations of letters which have an abnormal sound, 
an accent or mark of some kind to indicate their excep- 
tional characters. But the objection to this is that ordi- 
nary books are not printed thus, and that therefore the 
child will have something to unlearn when he goes from 
his special phonic school-book to any other. 

A graver objection to this method, and the real cause 
of its failure, is the extreme difficulty of isolating elemen- 
tary sounds and pronouncing them apart. 

The method would not be unsuited to older people who 
were learning the written language for the first time, but 
it presupposes that little children are more distressed by 
orthographic anomalies than they really are. They can, 
in fact, pronounce words, and divide them into syllables ; 
but to them the analysis of syllables into their components 
is a task much harder than the mere learning of arbitrary 
characters. 

Against the purely Alphabetic method it is easy to urge 



Preparatory Training. 227 

that the names of the letters do not express their powers ; 
that singly and apart they have no meaning for children, 
and are held in the mind hy no associations ; that analy- 
sis is always easier than synthesis^ and that it would inter- 
est a child much more to learn about a Avord first and ex- 
amine its parts afterwards, than to begin with the letters 
which, after all, do not really represent its parts and after- 
wards to build up the whole. 

On the other hand, the " Look and say method," which 
seeks to give a child a picture of a word as a whole, and 
teaches him to read rather by the general aspect of words 
than by careful observation of their parts, is open to the 
objection that many words have a general resemblance in 
their form, e.g. form and from^ there and three, hoard and 
hroad, which might be misleading, if they were not sub- 
jected to close inspection, xind this method, if depended 
on entirely, is apt to encourage loose, careless, visual im- 
pressions, out of which mistakes constantly arise. 

Again, the philosophers who are so sensible of the incon- 
gruity of our alphabet and of the arbitrary and mislead- 
ing effect of the names of the lett&rs, seem to forget that 
long before children come under regular instruction, they 
have actually learned the alphabet in the nursery or in the 
Kindergarten; they have merely in a game handled little 
wooden letters as toys, talked about them and arranged 
them in different ways ; and they have seen no more dif- 
ficulty in calling a particular character H, than in calling 
a horse a horse. 

You have therefore to deal with the fact, that in nine 
cases out of ten the alphabet, with its indefensible nomen- 
clature, is already known, having been learned in fact in 
the most effectual way, without the child's consciousness 
that he was learning anything. And after all the art of 



2 28 Lectures on Teaching, 

recognizing printed words ought always to be acquired 
thus, little by little, in short and playful lessons, while 
children are very young, and before any appeal is made 
to their reflection at all. I believe that it is a grave mis- 
take to postpone the first exercises in reading after the 
fourth year, and that the longer it is postponed the more 
difficult it becomes. But if this has not been done, and a 
child of six or seven has to start de novo, it is certainly not 
well to begin by presenting the alphabet. The best way 
then is to place before him a printed sheet with very easy 
sentences on it, and to read aloud a whole sentence, point- 
ing to each word as it is pronounced. Next the children 
should be invited to read it with the teacher aloud ; then 
to read it together without any help ; then one and 
another should be called on to point and identify each 
single word. So far the Look and Say method is right. 
But this lesson should be followed up by asking them in 
turn to count the number of letters in each word, and by 
writing each of them down, and giving their names. A 
card containing the alphabet should hang near, and as 
each letter occurs in the words of the little sentence, it 
should be pointed out and named. In this way, though 
the alphabet would not be taught at first as a whole, or as 
a separate lesson, each letter of it would be learned as it 
was wanted, and as it occurred in some word previously 
read. 

The requirements of a good reading-book have already 
Reading- "^^^^ referred to. It may be well to recall at- 
t)ooks. tention to them here : 

(1) It should be well printed and in sufficiently large 
type to make it very easy for the child to put his finger 
to each word as he pronounces it. 

(2) It should be made attractive by pictures, and by 



Preparatory Training. 229 

the pleasantness and interest of the subject. This is of 
the first importance. 

(3) The lessons shonld not be graduated by so mechan- 
ical a rule as the mere length of the words and number of 
syllables. Many words of three letters are harder than 
those of five ; and words like winter and summer are mach 
easier though they have two syllables in them than words 
like eye, who, and laugli, though they have one. The real 
gradation does not depend on the length and number of 
the syllables, but on the number of anomalies or difficul- 
ties in the words. The early lesson should have no anom- 
alous words at all. But each new lesson should contain 
two or three combinations harder than those of the pre- 
vious lesson, and several examples of each. 

(4) If possible let a good many of the lessons be narra- 
tive and in the form of dialogue, giving some play for 
changes of voice. Monotony is encouraged by always|read- 
ing sentences consisting of assertions only. 

(5) Again every lesson should contain at least two or 
three words wdiich are a little beyond the child's own 
Yocabulary, and which therefore when learned will be dis- 
tinct additions to it. This is very important. One of the 
first objects of a reading lesson is to enrich the scholar's 
store of words. A lesson which is so ostentatiously childish 
that it fails to add anything to this store, or to furnish 
material for questions, represents a lost opportunity. 

(6) Yet it is of very little consequence that the reading 
lessons should be obviously didactic or instructive, or in- 
deed that they should convey any information whatever. 
Later on, of course, we regard reading as a means to an 
end, and that end is instruction or mental culture ; but 
in the early stages, reading is itself an end. And what- 



230 Lectures on Teaching. 

ever conduces to make it more interesting facilitates the 
acquisition of the art. 

And now suppose a book is found which fulfils these 
conditions^ how is it to be used ? 

First it is well to read the passage aloud very carefully 
Te chins: ^^^^^ ^^^ proper intonation, requiring the 
reading:. scholars to fix their eyes on the book, and to 

follow the teacher, pointing out word by word as he utters 
it. 

ISText, a simultaneous exercise is often found very useful. 
The teacher reads the lesson again, and asks the whole 
class to read it with him slowly, but still with all the proper 
pauses and inflexions. 

The third step is to call upon the class to read the les- 
son simultaneously without him. 

Then he challenges the scholars one after another to 
read the sentences separately, selecting them by name pro- 
miscuously, and causing the worst readers to be appealed 
to much oftener than the rest. 

Afterwards he causes the books to be closed, and pro- 
ceeds to give a few simple questions on special words, and 
to require separate little sentences to be turned into others 
which are equivalent, and of which the words are supplied 
by the scholars. 

As to spelling, it is often the practice to print at the 
top of a reading lesson the few hardest words. 
Spelling:. ^^^ cause them to be specially spelt. I see no 
particular use in this. An isolated word has very little 
meaning or use to children. But they understand sen- 
tences. It is far better to read the sentence in which a 
word occurs, and then ask to have it spelled. And it is a 
gO'od thing often to cause whole sentences to be spelled, 
the class taking one word after another. 



Preparatorj^ Training, 231 



" The sun sheds light upon the earth/' 

You have all the words spelled rapidly through, but 
you halt at the word '^ Light." You call attention to it. 
You write it on the black-board. You say " I notice this 
word was difficult. Let us spell it again. I will show you 
three or four other words formed like it. Bright, Might, 
Fight. Let us put these into sentences, and spell them," 

Thus you encounter the difficulties of spelling, as you 
encounter all the other difficulties of life, as they come 
before you, one by one ; and try to conquer them in de- 
tail. Do not accumulate the difficulties in a menacing 
and artificial column, and expect them to be dealt with all 
at once. That is unreasonable. But a difficulty that 
emerges naturally in the course of a lesson is grappled 
with willingly, and there is some interest in taking the 
opportunity of calling attention to a few words of like 
character, and so of disposing of that particular difficulty 
once for all. Only in choosing your reading books, and 
selecting reading lessons, take care that each of the diffi- 
culties you want to solve shall occur in its own proper 
place some time or other. 

Columns of words arranged alphabetically, dictionary 
fashion, or according to the number of syl- 
lables in them, are open to several objections. ScidenSuy^ 
They all have to be learned alike, yet some n^un^5' 
are easy and some are difficult, some are fa- i^^d words', 
miliar and useful, others wholly technical and 
unimportant. Moreover standing apart, they are not asso- 
ciated with anything else in the child^s mind ; whereas 
if he read them in a sentence he would see their bearing 
directly. As a general rule all words spelt should be seen 



232 Lectures on Teaching. 

in sentences in their proper connection^ not in artificial 
groups invented by the book-makers. 

And with regard to the large number of words which 
are sounded alike but spelt differently, the simplest way 
of dealing with them is not to give them separate mean- 
ings, but to put them into little sentences, e.g. 

The wind Ueio hard ; The sky is Uue. 
I stood by the sea; He came to see me. 
This is fheir book ; He will stay there all night. 

But after all, it is to be borne in mind that spelling is 
spelling is ^ matter for the eye, not for the ear. H- it 
nSforthe' were not that we had to write, spelling would 
®^- be an altogether useless accomplishment ; and 

it is only when we write that any deficiency in this respect 
comes to light. The notion of the extreme importance 
attached to orthodox spelling is comparatively modern. 
Our ancestors, as you will easily find if you read the Pas- 
ton Letters, or old MS. in the British Museum, thought it 
an accomplishment to spell a word in many different ways, 
and you will often find the same word in two or three dif- 
ferent forms in one document. But since Johnson, with 
the general consent of the literary men of his time, sought 
to fix the spelling of the language, there has come to pre- 
vail in England an impression that bad spelling is a mark 
of extreme ignorance, if not worse. Of course this is a 
very conventional and unreal standard of ignorance ; but 
we must take the world as we find it, and must acquiesce 
in the fact that whatever else we teach our scholars, we 
shall get no credit for doing anything if they cannot spell. 
And the person who spells well is simply he who carries 
in his memory a good visual impression of the picture of 



Preparatory Training. 233 

the word as it appears in a written or printed book. If he 
has not this, it is to no purpose that he can, merely as a 
memory lesson, recall the letters when yon exercise him in 
oral spelling. And if he has this, all else is unnecessary. 
There are many persons, who, if you ask them how to 
spell receive or how many s's there are in necessary, 
would not tell you readily, but would say at once, "Let 
me write the word down, and I will tell you if it is right." 
And if it is written down incorrectly, it is the eye which is 
offended by not seeing the accustomed picture of the 
word ; it is not the verbal memory or the reason which 
sets them right. 

And hence we may infer that it is mainly by writing 
that spelling is to be taught. And the familiar 
exercise of Dictation known in all schools is 
the practical recognition of this obvious truth. But there 
are skilful and unskilful ways even of conducting a dic- 
tation lesson, and I hope it is not beneath the dignity of 
this place to add a few words on this very simple matter. 

In giving out a sentence, some teachers pronounce one 
word at a time ; in a loud monotone. But this method 
is unsatisfactory, for however loudly and clearly uttered, 
single words are easily misunderstood. Others read short 
fragments, and repeat them two, three, and even four 
times. This plan also leads to mistakes, for when once a 
word is written, it is distracting and unnecessary to hear 
it again. 

The best way is first of all to read the whole passage 
through once so as to give its general meaning and pur- 
pose ; afterwards to read it piecemeal, one member of a 
sentence at a time, to read it only once, but with the in- 
flection and tone which carries its meaning ; and to leave 
a sufficiently long pause after each fragment to allow the 



2 34 Lectures on Teaching. 

slowest writer time to write it. The pauses should not 
be determined by the stops, nor by any rule about uni- 
form length ; but should come between the logical ele- 
ments of the sentence, so that each piece to be carried in 
the memory should have a unity and meaning of its own. 
Here is an example : 

" I was yesterday | about sunset | walking in the o^Den fields [ , 
until the night | insensibly fell | upon me. | I at first | amused 
myself | with all the richness [ and variety of colors I which 
appeared | in the, western parts | of heaven." 

If it ever becomes necessary to say a word or phrase 
more than once, the dictator is unskilful, and must either 
cultivate greater clearness of articulation or more patience. 

The exercise of copying a passage out of a book, though 
Transcrip- ^^ should not supersede dictation, is occasion- 
tion. r^lly g useful substitute for it. It is quieter, 

and more expeditious. It is apt, in the case of a careless 
child, to reveal exactly the same mistakes, which would 
have been made in a dictation lesson ; since the words 
are not looked at one by one, but dictated to himself two 
or three at a time. And in the case of more careful 
learners, who look at the words and try to avoid mistakes, 
it is evident that this form of exercise is not less effective. 
When the exercise is finished it may often be examined and 
corrected by the help of the scholars themselves. 

Having observed a particular form of error to occur 
more frequently than others, you will do well 
used as wefi to call attention to it, and to write the two or 
asspe e . iy^-^qq difficult words plainly on the board. 
Follow up and thrust home the whole lesson by requir- 
ing each scholar to write down the words thus selected, 
and after this to place each of them in a sentence of his 



Preparatory Training, 235 

own construction. It is surprising to me to find how sel- 
dom this simple expedient is used in schools. It is to no 
purpose that you explain a new word, discuss its origin 
and its various shades of meaning, and call attention to 
the 2>eculiarities of its spelling, so long as the word still 
remains like the name of some foreign city, outside the 
range of his own knowledge or experience. The first 
thing to do with a word which you thus give to your 
scholar is to teach him to use it. " Put it into a sentence. 
Make up a little narrative in which this word shall occur." 
Isot till you have done this have you any security that 
the word in question has been appropriated and become a 
real part of his vocabulary. We have already said that 
every new word which we thus add to a child's store, is 
a new instrument of thought, and does something to widen 
the horizon of his understanding. So I would say gen- 
erally, '^ Never explain or spell a new word, without call- 
ing upon the scholar soon after to make use of it in a 
sentence of his own.'' 

One other caution is needed here. Do not try to teach 
spelling by the use of incorrect examples. In speuinffnot 
my school days, it was the custom to set from M^Jorrert 
a printed book, letters and extracts grotesquely examples, 
mis-spelled, and to tell us to re-write them without mis- 
take. I believe this practice has nearly died out. But I 
hope every one here sees the fundamental objection to it 
and indeed to all such devices. Writing and spelling are 
imitative arts, and it is essential that the eye should see 
none but good models for imitation. We have said that 
to spell a word well is to have an accurate picture of it 
before the visual memory, so to speak. But if we set a 
wrong picture before the learner, how do we know that he 
will not carry that with him instead of the true one ? For 



236 Lectures on Teaching, 

here there is i;o absolute right and wrong, nothing in 
which the judgment can help to set him right. It is all a 
matter of arbitrary usage and habit ; and it is therefore 
desirable that the only words which meet his eye should 
be rightly spelt. 

Now assuming that you have taught reading well enough 

to give to your scholars fluency and readiness 

and^ef?e?tive and the power to understand a book, is it right 

reading. ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ teachers do stop there. 

They think they have put into the hands of their scholars 
the instrument of all further acquisitions and that there 
is an end to it. Reading aloud, considered as a fine art, 
is very much neglected in schools, especially in the more 
advanced schools for boys, because there it is undervalued, 
and thought of far less importance than the attainment of 
knowledge. Without discussing this, we may affirm that 
if the attention of teachers was once directed to the ex- 
treme usefulness of this art, they would try to find some 
time for practising it. Consider how rare an accomplish- 
ment that of really good reading is. Consider how great 
an acquisition one person who is a fine and expressive 
reader is in a household, how much he or she can do to 
add to the charm, the happiness, and to the intelligence 
of the home. By fine reading, of course I do not mean 
pompous stagy elocution, which draws attention and ad- 
miration to itself, and is felt by the hearers to be artificial, 
but reading so clear, so easy, so natural, that one may lis- 
ten to it for an hour at a time with pleasure, and that no 
word, no finer shade of the author's meaning, escapes or 
fails to be conveyed to the mind of the hearers. 

We must not regard reading as a merely mechanical art 
for the reproduction of other people's thoughts. It is it- 
self a discipline in intelligence and taste. It is not only 



Preparatory Training. 237 

a result but a means of culture. We have said before that 
to teach is to learn. So also to read -aloud^ to read for 
others, to read so as to enlighten, to charm, to move your 
auditors, is the infallible secret of being enlightened, of 
being charmed, of being moved yourself. Of many of the 
best books it may be truly said that they are never thor- 
oughly comprehended, until they are well read or recited. 
And if you will further consider that the human voice 
is the most vivid translation of human thought, that it 
is the most supple, the most docile, the most eloquent in- 
terpreter of whatever is best in the reason and in the heart 
of man, you will see that there is a very real connection 
between right thought and right utterance ; and that 
anything you can do to make speech more finished, more 
exact, more expressive, and more beautiful, will have a very 
direct bearing on the mental and spiritual culture of your 
pupils. Finally, let me remind you that of all the arts 
and accomplishmenis we possess, this is the one which 
comes into use most frequently ; and that what is done 
oftenest should be done best. 

It would carry us too far to attempt here even a com- 
pendium of the rules on which good elocu- 
tion depends. But three points of paramount ditionsof 

good readings, 
importance you will do well to keep in view. 

They are 

(a) Distinct articulation; the power to utter clearly 
every syllable and especially every consonant. You should 
get together a list of words and of sentences in which 
there is a special tendency to pronounce three syllables 
as two, or to elide a consonant, e.g. '^ necessavj, distinct 
ness, Has^ thou been ? An^i keep his comman^imenfs." 
Pronounce these words and sentences rapidly, and you 
will see that a little effort is required to enunciate the 



238 Lectures on Teaching. 

letters in italics with perfect distinctness. Keep your ear 
open for faults of this kind and correct them at once in 
reading, before the careless habit of slurred and confused 
utterance is formed. A former colleague of mine, Mr. 
Brookfield, who was himself a very fine reader, was wont 
to give this counsel, " Eemember your consonants and 
forget yourself.'^ 

(b) Frequent pause. To form a habit of good reading, 
it is necessary to begin by reading slowly ; and to make 
habitually many more breaks or pauses than are indicated 
by the punctuation. The right way of placing these 
pauses will become clear to any one who has learned to 
analyze a sentence into subject, predicate, and adjuncts. 
It is a safe rule that a slight rhetorical pause, hardly a 
stop, should mark the logical divisions of every sentence, 
should come, e.g., after a nominative, especially when it 
is formed of two or three words, before every preposition, 
conjunction, and relative, and before any word or phrase 
which needs to be emphasized. 

(c) Just intonation and expression. From the first the 
monotone in which children are apt to read should be 
discouraged, and they should be trained to read as they 
speak, putting the same variety of inflections into the 
printed words, as into their own conversation. This may 
be secured partly by the selection of well-varied pieces ; 
partly by challenging pupils, whenever they are reading 
in an artificial tone, to close the book and tell the sub- 
stance of what they have read in their own words ; and 
partly by enforcing the rule that the eye should always 
travel several words in advance of the word actually read, 
in order that the bearing of the uttered word on its con- 
text may be fully known. 



Preparatory Training, 239 

Besides tlie art of reading, or reproducing printed 
words, you should have in view the usefulness oraiex- 
of oral expression, or the utterance of the pu- pression. 
piFs own thoughts in his own words. This is too much 
neglected in schools. A scholar is too often expected to 
say only those things which he has learned, and to say 
them piecemeal in re]3ly to questions and in nearly the 
exact form in which he learned them. You will do well 
to say in the last five minutes of a lesson, " Which of you 
can give me the best account of what we have learned ? " 
" Who can tell me now the anecdote Avhich I related just 
now ? ^^ There will thus be an exercise, in consecutivG 
expression, and in the choice and use of words, such as is 
not to be had in the mere answering of definite questions. 
The practice w^ill give a little trouble at first, and pupils 
will be shy in replying ; but once adopted, it will be found 
very helpful in giving fluency and confidence, and it will 
have an excellent reflex action on the reading, especially 
on the ease and naturalness of the tone. 

Make provision at certain intervals for a little reading 
or elocutionary tournament, in which some special ex- 
animated dialogue or dramatic scene is recited ercises. 
in the hearing of the class by some of its best scholars, 
who have taken special pains to prepare it. 

It is well also to cause interesting passages from good 
orators or poets to be learned by heart, and to be re- 
peated with particular reference to accuracy of pronun- 
ciation and just expression. 

In many schools it is found a useful and interesting 
practice to reserve half an hour a week for xhe teacher'* 
giving, in the hearing of the scholars, a care- J^mMeV^^^ 
fully chosen reading from some good poem reading. 
or narrative. If you choose such a passage as will awaken 



240 Lectures on Teaching, 

the attention, and read it so that it shall be a treat to the 
scholars to listen to it, they will not only have a model 
for imitation, but they will look with more favor on the 
art of reading itself, as a means of giving and receiving 
pleasure. 

And this, and indeed all my rules, presuppose that the 
teacher should be himself a good reader. You can never 
bring your scholars up to your own level. So that if you 
wish their level to be tolerably high, you own level should 
be exceptionally high. No pains that you can take with 
yourself to increase the power, the sweetness, and the 
flexibility of your own voice will be wasted. Eeading is 
an imitative art, and if you are to teach it well, you must 
first think careful elocution worth acquiring, and then 
acquire it for yourself. 

Writing is one of the subjects on which there seems to 
be least to say. We all feel that it is a matter 

" ^^^' of practice mainly, not of theory. In teach- 
ing it there are few or no principles to explain, and a great 
many exercises to do. 

As an art it is greatly neglected in high and public 
schools. The habit of writing many notes, translation and 
other exercises betrays boys into a scribbling, running 
hand, before they have taken pains to form single letters 
well ; and very little is done to check this tendency. 
When it is considered how much a legible handwriting 
has to do with the comfort of one's correspondents, there 
seems to be no good reason why young people who are 
to be brought up as gentlemen and gentlewomen should 
write a worse hand than the children of a National School, 
or why some attention to writing per se should not be given 
even in the higher classes at the best schools. 



Preparatory Training. 241 

For every good teacher, in addition to the immediate 
and obvious results contemplated in e^ivins: 
lessons on a given subject, asks mniseii : rectimpor- 
" What particular faculties or qualities of 
mind are being exercised in these lessons ? " " What is 
the incidental effect of the teaching of this subject on the 
formation of the intellectual character of my scholar ? " 
And when he looks at writing from this point of view, he 
sees that it may be a training in accuracy of eye, in steadi- 
ness and flexibility of hand, in obedience and in cleanli- 
ness ; and that every time a scholar receives a writing les- 
son, his habits are either being improved or deteriorated 
in these respects. 

Now in all good elementary schools it is found easy to 
have a standard of excellence in this matter, and to make 
every child conform to it. There are in fact no bad writers 
in an elementary school of the best class. A good method 
steadfastly carried out is found to be infallibly efficacious 
even in the worst cases. And this method is not elaborate. 
Mulhauser and others have devised a whole system of 
writing founded on the analysis of letters into their ele- 
ments, and have given names to all the parts of which 
letters are formed, as the right line, the curve line, the 
linlc, the loop, and the crochet; and I have seen some in- 
genious lessons given of a synthetic kind, in which models 
of these various parts having been shown their names were 
dictated, so that letters and words emerged one after 
another. But in practice such vsystems have not been 
found of much use, for they make a needless demand on 
the memory, and they give separate names to things which 
have no separate value or meaning. The success attained 
in good elementary schools in teaching the art of writing 
is due to much simpler methods. A proper graduation of 



2 42 Lectures on Teaching;. 

letters according to the difficulty and complexity of the 
lines composing them is found to fulfil the same purpose 
as a classification of those lines themselves. There are 
but 26 letters ; and if the n, m, I, u, and ^ are formed into 
one group, the o, c, a, q, and d into a second, the r, h, 
w, and V into a third, the g, h, /, _/, p into a fourth ; and 
if those letters which do not conform to these t3rpes, as 
s, z, Ic, X, are reserved to the last, the classification suffices 
for practical purposes, and the teacher gives as copies in 
succession, not the single letters, but little words which 
contain them, and which have more interest for children. 

A good copy being the first condition, careful super- 
vision, and the prompt correction of each mistake, will do 
nearly all the rest. Complex oral directions as to how to 
hold the pen, and how to sit, are not needed. Gaucherie 
and bad attitude may be pointed out in special cases, but 
there is no harm in allowing different modes of handling 
a pen or pencil so long as the writing produced is good. 
The good teacher goes round the writing class to every 
scholar with a pencil in his hand; he calls attention to each 
mistake, forms in the next line a letter to be traced over, 
desires his pupil to complete that line only, and to wait 
till it has been seen again. He notices each prevalent 
error in form or proportion, and on a ruled black-board 
in front of the class rvakes a good pattern of the particular 
letter, and causes it to be copied several times. He knows 
that if this is not done children copy their own mistakes. 
And generally he relies more on incessant watchfulness, 
on care that the same mistakes shall not be made twice 
over, and on constant use of model writing, than on any 
theoretical instruction. 

The well-known passage from Locke sums up, after all, 
Locke on ^^® ^^^^ rules which have to be borne in mind 
writing:. {^ teaching this subject. He says 



Preparatory T,ainiiig. 243 

"When a boy can read English well, it will be seasonable to 
enter him in Writing. Not only children, but anybody else that 
would do anything well should never be put upon too much of it 
at once, or be set to perfect themselves in two parts of an action 
at the same time, if they can possibly be separated. When he has 
learned to hold his pen right, . . . the way to teach him with- 
out much trouble is to get a plate graved with the characters of 
such a hand as you like best, but you must remember to have 
them a pretty deal bigger than he should ordinarily write; for 
every one comes by degrees to write a less hand than he at first 
was taught, but never a bigger. . . Such a plate being graved, 
let several sheets of good writing paper be printed off with red 
ink, which he has nothing to do but to go over with a good pen 
filled with black ink, which will quickly bring his hand to the 
formation of those characters, being at first showed when to begin, 
and how to form every letter. And when he can do that well 
he may exercise on fair paper, and so may easily be brought to 
write the hand you desire." 

You have here enforced the two principal expedients 
for securing a good hand ; (1) tracing, which is perhaps 
more effective from the teacher's own pencil-marks than 
from faint engraved lines; and (2) insisting on large 
hand, and resisting for much longer than is usual the 
wish of scholars to write small or running-hand. Those 
who begin small writing too soon are often careless about 
the formation of single letters, and form a habit of scrib- 
bling, which lasts them through life. Those, however, who 
are kept writing on a large scale until they can shape 
every letter well, may soon form for themselves without 
trouble a good and characteristic style of writing. Here, 
as in so many of the mechanical arts, you must not be 
impatient at slowness in the earlier stages, and must re- 
member that if accuracy and finish are first gained, 
rapidity and ease will come afterward ; but yet if these 
two last are sought for themselves, or too early, the first 



244 Lectures on Teaching, 

will never come at all. Here at least it is true that " La 
gradation et la repetition^ sagement entendues, sont I'ame 
de Fenseignement/^ 

It does not consist with my present plan to comment 

on the two other chief instruments of Sense- 
and Vocal training which fall within the province of a 

school course. Nor do I feel competent to of- 
fer any practical rules for the teaching of either Drawing 
or Vocal Music. But I have a strong conviction that both 
should form integral parts of every school course, and 
should be- taught to every scholar. The claims of Music, 
both in training the voice and in giving cheerfulness to 
the school-life, are incontestable. And Drawing is not 
only in a practical sense indispensable to the skilled artisan, 
and capable of manifold useful applications by scholars of 
every class ; but its indirect effect on the training of the 
perceptions, on taste, on clearness of vision and firmness of 
hand, is still more important as an element in a liberal 
education. 



The Study of Language. 245 



VIII. THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE. 

The study of language has held a high place in most 
systems of education. However far we go back Laneuaee 
in the history of learning, we find that such lie onn-***' 
subjects as grammar and rhetoric, which con- struction. 
cerned themselves with the right use and choice of words, 
have always formed, if not the chief, at any rate a promi- 
nent feature in the scheme of a liberal education. Indeed 
in the history of our own country and in the practice of 
our Universities and public schools, linguistic studies have 
held a place so conspicuous, that they have well-nigh over- 
shadowed all others. 

So it may be well to ask ourselves at the outset. Why 
should we study language at all ? On what The reasons 
reasons is the universal tradition in favor of fortius. 
philological and grammatical studies founded ? Are those 
reasons valid ? And if so, to what extent should they be 
accepted and acted on, having regard to the just claims 
of much new and useful knowledge of another kind ? 
Speech we know is the one characteristic distinction of 
humanity. Every word which has been in- -v^oj-ds the 
vented is the record of some fact or thought, formed °^ 
and furnishes the means by which facts or thougiit. 
thoughts can be transmitted to others. In a sense, every 
new word represents a new conquest of civilization, a 
distinct addition to the intellectual resources of the world. 
To become acquainted with words, in their full signifi- 



246 Lectures on Teaching. 

canee^ is to know mucli about the things they represent ; 
and about the thoughts which other people have had re- 
specting those things. The enlargement of our voca- 
bulary, whether it be in English or any other language, 
means the enlargement of our range of thought and the 
acquisition of new materials of knowledge. 

Moreover, the words we use are not merely the ex- 
ponents of notions and thoughts which have 

struments of existed in the minds of others ; they are the 
new tliouglit. . . 

very instruments with which we think. We 

are unable to conceive of any regular consecutive think- 
ing, — any advance from what is known to what is un- 
known — except by the agency of language. Whatever 
therefore gives precision and method to our use of words, 
gives precision to our thoughts. Language as it has been 
formed by nations, embodied in literature, and formu- 
lated into grammar, corresponds in its structure to the 
evolution of thought in man. Every grammatical rule is, 
in another form, a rule of logic ; every idiom, a represen- 
tation of some moral differentia or characteristic of the 
people who have used it ; every subtle verbal distinction 
is a key to some logical distinction ; every figure of speech, 
a symbol of some effort of the human imagination to over- 
leap the boundary of the prosaic and the actual, and to 
pass into the infinite region beyond ; every verbal ambig- 
uity is both the effect and the cause of mental con- 
fusion. And so the study of language is the study of hu- 
manity ; the forms of language represent the forms of 
human thought ; the history of language is the history 
of our race and its development, and great command over 
the resources of language is only another name for great 
command over the ideas and conceptions which make up 
the wealth of our intellectual life. 



The Study of Language. 247 

Mr. Max Mliller estimates the total number of English 
words at 50^000 ; he points out that the 
speaking yocabulary of an ordinary English varSylS* 
citizen, Avho reads his newspaper and books ^°<^^^^i^^y- 
from Mudie's, does not extend beyond 3000 or 4000 
words ; that accurate thinkers and persons of wide knowl- 
edge probably use twice as many ; that the Old Testa- 
ment contains 5642 different words ; that in all Milton's 
works you will find only about 8000 ; and that Shake- 
speare, who displayed a greater variety of expression than 
probably any writer in any language, produced all his 
plays with 15,000 words. And at the same time he tells 
us that an uneducated English peasant lives and dies with 
a vocabulary which scarcely extends beyond 300 words. 
You cannot reflect on a statement like this, and on all 
that it implies, without feeling convinced that all investi- 
gations into the growth of language, its structure, its 
history, and the philosophy and reason of its grammatical 
rules, must have an important bearing on the culture of 
the understanding, and be very fruitful both of useful 
knowledge and of mental exercise. It is a shallow thing 
to say that what the human being wants is a knowledge 
of things, and not words. Words are things ; they em- 
body facts. He who studies them is studying much more 
than sounds and letters. He is gaining an insight into 
the heart and 'reality of the things they represent. Let 
a battle-field or a storm at sea be viewed by a painter, by 
a poet, by a sailor, and by an ordinary observer ; — or say, 
by a Frenchman and an Englishman. It will be described 
differently by them all. But he who understands the 
language of them all, sees it, so to speak, with several pairs 
of eyes. And he is the richer, and his mind is the larger 
in consequence. 



248 Lectures on Teaching. 

Some such reasons as these no doubt underlie the very 
general assumption that a sound and liberal education 
should pay special regard to the study of language. And 
we in England have to deal with this practical question 
in three distinct forms. We teach (1) the langu-ages of 
Greece and Rome^ which are familiarly called the classic 
languages ; (2) some of the languages of modern Europe ; 
and (3) our own vernacular speech. We shall do well to 
take this opportunity of noting the special reasons which 
justify each of these kinds of teaching. On examination 
we shall find that in each we have a very different object 
in view. There is, however, a sense in which all are alike 
valuable, and in which their study may be justified on the 
general grounds already indicated. 

But as we all know, the linguistic and philological cul- 
Latinand ^^^^ ^*^ which most value has been attached 
Greek. jg j^j^^^ which is to be gained in the study of 

Latin and Greek. We still call the man who is familiar 
with these languages a scholar par excellence, and are in- 
clined to withhold the title from one who, however learned 
in other ways, has no acquaintance with what are called 
the classics. Now, without denouncing this state of opin- 
ion as a superstition, as some do, it may be well to ask our- 
selves what is the origin of it, and how it ever came to 
pass that the Latin and Greek languages were regarded 
as the staple of all learning — almost the o-nly knowledge 
worth acquiring ? Let us look back to a period 300 years 
ago, the time when Lyly wrote his Grammar, when 
Ascham was teaching Lady Jane Grey and Queen Eliza- 
beth to read Plato, and when the most important of our 
great grammar schools were founded. If you had in those 
days asked Erasmus or Sir Philip Sidney why Latin and 
Greek should hold this prominent, this almost exclusive 



The Study of Language 249 

rank, the reply would have been very easy. The books 
best worth reading in the world were written in those lan- 
guages. If one wanted to see the best models of history, 
there were Thucydides and Livy ; if he would know what 
dramatic art could be at its highest, he must read Sopho- 
cles and Euripides, or Plautus and Terence. If he would 
learn geometry, there was Euclid ; rhetoric, he must read 
it in Quintillian or Aristotle ; moral philosophy, in Plato 
or Cicero. '^ I expect ye," wrote Sir Matthew Hale to his 
grandchildren, ^Uo be good proficients in the Latin 
tongue, that ye may be able to read, understand, and con- 
strue any Latin author, and to make true and handsome 
Latin ; and though I would have you learn something of 
Greek, yet the Latin tongue is that which I most value, 
because all learning is ever made in that language." Mod- 
ern literature was only just emerging into life, after the 
long darkness of the middle ages ; and a certain flavor 
of barbarism and rudeness was held to belong to it. 
Chaucer and Dante had written, but it would not have 
occurred to any scholar of the sixteenth century to sup- 
pose that such books would repay critical analysis in the 
same sense as Homer or Ovid. Nearly all the literary 
wealth of the world, as it then was, was embodied in the 
language of Greece or that of ancient Eome. 

Another reason for studying these languages was that 
they were the only languages whose grammar xheir gram- 
had been formulated and reduced to a system. °^^'^- 
Each of these languages was nearly homogeneous, with 
very few foreign ingredients. Each possessed an elaborate 
system of inflections and grammatical forms ; and each 
had become a dead language — had ceased to be spoken 
popularly, and therefore to be subject to the sort of cor- 
ruption which goes on in the case of a tongue freely used 



250 Lectures on Teaching. 

by an -unlearned people. Both languages therefore pre- 
sented examples of organized and philosophic grammar, 
and a fixed literature, in which the laws of grammatical 
strnctnre were well exemplified and could be easily studied. 
On the other hand, the languages of modern Europe were 
heterogeneous, full of anomalies, subject to phonetic de- 
cay, and in a constant state of fluctuation. No attempt 
had been made to fix their forms, to find out what gram- 
matical laws were still recognizable in them, and they 
therefore oft'ered little attraction or advantage to the stu- 
dent of language. 

And besides all this, Latin, though a dead language for 
ordinary colloquial purposes, was an eminently 
Jnc?served living and vigorous language for many of the 
t)y Latin. purposes recognized by a scholar. It had been 
accepted as the universal language of the Western Church. 
It was the common medium of communication among the 
ecclesiastics and among the scholars of Europe. Not only 
Bede and the earlier chroniclers, but Sir T. More, Buch- 
anan, Bacon, Hobbes, Milton, and Newton found Latin 
the most appropriate channel for communicating their 
thoughts both to foreign scholars and to the educated of 
their own countrymen. 

It is manifest that some of these reasons have either 
Wo longer ceased to exist altogether, or have receded 
served. ygpy n^-Qch as to their relative importance. It 

cannot now be said that all the wisest and fairest produc- 
tions of the human intellect are to be found in the 
Greek and Latin languages. A rich modern literature has 
sprung up. Many entirely new studies have come into 
existence. There is the science of historic criticism ; 
there are new developments of mathematical science ; 
there is the whole of the wonderful field of physical in- 



The Study of Language, 251 

yestigation ; the modern languages, including our own, 
have become the subjects of philological and critical in- 
quiry ; and meanwhile the duration of human life has 
not been materially extended. It is evident, when we com- 
pare the books which are worth reading, and the sub- 
jects which can be studied to-day, with the books and the 
knowledge which were accessible in the days of Elizabeth, 
that the place occupied by Greek and Latin literature, 
however honorable, is relatively far less important than 
it was. This is now recognized by the ancient Universi- 
ties themselves. The institution of the Law and Modern 
History schools at Oxford, and of the Natural Science 
Tripos and the Moral Science Tripos at Cambridge, are 
practical admissions that the word "learning" must be 
extended in its meaning ; and that, e.g., an accomplished 
student of Natural Science, who knows little or no Greek, 
is as much entitled to rank as a scholar and to receive hon- 
orable recognition from the University, as a good Greek 
scholar who knows little or nothing of Natural Science. 

And it is important also to remember that Latin has 
ceased to serve the purpose it once fulfilled of 
a common medium of communication among J'o^^j.^the 
scholars. A modern Newton would not write Sfmmunica- 
his Principia in Latin. Our Sovereigns have JearnSimen! 
no longer, as Cromwell had, a Latin secretary. 
Nor would any contemporary of ours who wished to vin- 
dicate the political action of the English people in the 
eyes of foreign nations carry on a controversy in the lan- 
guage employed by Milton and Salmasius. The occasions 

on which any educated Ensflishman, who is ^ ^ 

-^ o 7 Or to any 

not a Colles^e tutor, or who does not take up ' great extent 

o ' . ^ an instru- 

learninsf as a profession, is called on to write mentof 
or} tliouglit. 

in Latin are exceedingly rare. Few even of 

the most scholarly men in England are accustomed to 



252 Lectures on Teaching. 

think in Latin, or to use it often as a vehicle for expres- 
sion. They read Latin books with more or less ease ; they 
catch the flavor of the Augustan literature and the spirit 
of the Roman world, but the language which Tully and 
Horace spoke is no longer to them an instrument of 
thought. 

Nevertheless there is still a lingering and very potent 
tradition, stronger even in our Grammar 

Yet it is still Schools than in the Universities themselves, 
paramoant ' 

in otir higher that Latin and Greek are in some way the 
instruction. -^ 

staple of a gentleman's education ; that he 

who has them and nothing else can claim to be called a 
scholar, and that he who has much other culture, and 
varied knowledge in other departments, and who has had 
no classical training, is an inferior being. It is not diffi- 
cult to account for this sentiment. The men who make 
the public opinion of the country on these matters are 
for the most part those whose early education was car- 
ried out on this theory. One naturally values that which 
one knows best. Down deep in the mind of the successful 
statesman, the clergyman, or man of letters, who looks 
back on his years of toil over the Latin Accidence and 
the Greek Lexicon there is the half-expressed conviction, 
" The system must have been a good one because it pro- 
duced me." It is very difficult for a man in later life to 
divest his mind of all the associations which give a certain 
dignity to the thought of a classical education, or to ask 
himself what might have been done with his faculties if 
they had been otherwise trained. Now and then a man has 
the boldness to put this question to himself, and the an- 
swer is not always satisfactory. Listen to Wordsworth's 
reminiscences of his College days. I was, he says. 



The study of Language, 253 

"Misled in estimating \yords, not only 
By common inexperience of youth 
But by the trade in classic niceties, 
The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase 
From languages that want the living voice 
To carry meaning to the natural heart; 
To tell us what is passion, Avhat is truth, 
What reason, what simplicity, what sense." 

— The Prelude. 

The testimony accumulated by the Schools Inquiry 

Commission of 1866 was conclusive not only 

,- ^ oil And often 

as to the prevalence m the Grammar tecnools unfruitful 

. of result, 

of a belief in the supreme efficacy of Latin and 

Greek as means of mental training, but also as to the 
worthlessness of much of the result, and the heavy price 
we have paid in England for the maintenance of the 
Grammar School theory. It constantly happened to me 
when engaged as Assistant Commissioner on that inquiry 
to find an ancient Grammar School with 50 boys, of whom 
three fourths had begun the Latin Grammar, about ten 
were learning the delectus, some four or five in the high- 
est class of the school were translating Caesar, and one or 
at most two at the head of the School were reading Vir- 
gil and elementary Greek, and gave some promise that 
they might perhaps go to the University. And an occa- 
sional success in preparing a boy for matriculation en- 
couraged the master and trustees in describing this as 
a thoroughly classical school, and caused them to for- 
get that at least 48 out of the 50 w^ould never go to the 
University, and would never learn enough of Latin or of 
Greek to be able to read even a simple author. Mean- 
while for the sake of the " Classics " which had absorbed 
all their time they had been allowed to remain wholly 
ignorant of mathematics, they knew absolutely nothing 



254 Lectures on Teaching. 

of physical science, of French or German, or of the strnc- 
ture of their own language : they wrote, and even spelt, 
badly, and were often in point of general knowledge in- 
ferior to the children of a ]N'ational School. 

This state of things is being slowly mended ; and there 
can be little doubt that, ere long, all schools of this kind 
will have been modernized and improved. Other subjects are 
asserting their right to recognition ; and perhaps the dan- 
ger is that in the wholesome reaction against a state of 
opinion which gave to Latin and Greek an exclusive and 
hurtful predominance in a school course, we may come to 
make exactly the opposite mistake of unduly depreciatiijg 
them. Meanwhile it is worth while for us to make up our 
minds on this question. What — having regard to" the pres- 
ent boundaries of human knowledge and to the claims of 
modern life — is the right place for the ancient languages 
to hold, in a system of liberal education ? 

The answer to this question appears to me to depend 
The future entirely on the considerations which I tried to 
^MGreek*"^ insist on in the second lecture, and particu- 
in schools. \^^\y Q^ the length of time which the student 
will probably devote to his course of instruction. You 
should keep in view roughly the three classes of learners 
— those who are likely to enter the Universities^- and to 
aim at something like finished scholarship ; those whose 
course of instruction will probably not be prolonged be- 
yond 16 or 17 and who may be presumed to enter pro- 
fessions soon after ; and those who only receive primary 
instruction ending at 13 or 14. Latin has indeed its rela- 
tions to all three. But it is not Latin for the same pur- 
pose, or to be taught by the same methods. In an inter- 
esting and suggestive paper by Professor Eamsay, in Mac- 
mUlan^s Magazine, you will find that he would treat all 



The Study of Language. 255 

these classes alike. Latin^ he says, ought to be taught 
from the first as a living language. You are to aim at the 
power of varied expression and spontaneous thought by 
the help of Latin ; you must learn the grammar very 
thoroughly, compose and recompose idiomatic phrases, 
long before you attempt to read an author. And all this 
he would seem to recommend alike for the boy who means 
to make scholarship the business of his life', and for the 
children of the Burgh and parish schools. But surely the 
reasons which justify the learning of Latin are so differ- 
ent in the different cases, that the same methods are not 
applicable to them all. 

We may hope that means will always be found for en- 
couraging genuine Greek and Latin scholar- (d in High 
ship in England. Considering the part which ^ ^^ ' 
has been played by the ancient literature in forming the 
intellectual character of Europe, considering that nearly 
the whole of the best books which have been written in 
English are saturated through and through with allusions 
and modes of thought drawn consciously or unconsciously 
from classical sources ; considering too the admitted 
value, the literary and artistic- finish of the best books 
which have come down to us, it is evident that we shall 
sustain a great loss if ever this mine of wealth ceases to 
be explored or if we come to disregard it. And we may 
hope too that there will always be some students in Eng- 
land so devoted to the study of the ancient literature, 
that they will not neglect what may be called the niceties 
and elegancies, the refinements and luxuries of Greek and 
Latin scholarship. Even for these it may well be doubted 
whether Latin is ever likely to be used, as Professor Eam- 
say would have it, as a medium for free expression, or 
intellectual interxjourse. It is only in a very limited senfee 



256 Lectures on Teaching. 

that, even for tliem, Latin ought to be regarded as a liv- 
ing language. But we may admit that for them the train- 
ing in versification and in Greek and Latin composition, 
to which so many years were devoted in the old grammar 
schools, has a meaning and a value. And in the sixth 
form of a public school, and in the case of all who are 
likely to reach it and to proceed to the Universities, let us 
by all means accept the University standard and work 
towards it. It is not within my province now to criticise 
that standard, or to say how you are to attain it. But I 
will ask you to consider the case of those to whom this 
ideal is unattainable, and to inquire what part the study 
of Latin ought to play in their education. 

From those scholars who, when at the University, are 
(2) inMod- likely to select mathematics, natural science, or 
ary, and^ " modern subjects as their special subjects, and 
Schoofs. for the far larger number who are never likely 

to proceed to the University, but who will enter pro- 
fessional or other active life at 16 or 17, the attempt to 
teach versification and the niceties of scholarship, or even 
to teach Greek at all, generally proves to be a mistake, 
for the reasons which have already been given, of which 
the chief is that the studies are not carried on to the fruit- 
bearing stage. Yet for such pupils, Latin has a real value. 
It can do much for them if the purpose with which it 
should be taught is carefully defined and kept in view. 

The substantial difference in the teaching of Latin to 

such pupils is that here you want them to read 
Objects to IT T "^ . . ^^ 

be kept in the lanojuaa^e, but not to write it. You wish 

view. <~j ■' 

to familiarize them with the works of a few 

of the easier and more valuable Latin authors, and to un- 
derstand their contents. And besides, and even above 
this, you teach Latin to this class of pupils ; (1) because 



The Study of Language, 257 

in it you find the best practical illustration of the science 
of grammar and the laws and structure of language gen- 
erally ; (2) because it furnishes an effective instrument 
for examining the history, formation, affinities, and de- 
velopment of the English language, and (3) because it 
helps to explain much that would otherwise be obscure 
in our national literature, and to make intelligible the re- 
lation in which this literature stands to that of Greece 
and Eome. 

Now if these be the main objects contemplated, it will 
follow that much of the most laborious part of how to be 
the orthodox Latin teaching in the grammar attained, 
and public schools becomes, if not superfluous, of very 
secondary importance. These objects are attainable, within 
a very reasonable amount of time and without encroach- 
ing on the domain of other learning. And when it is once 
understood that they are worth attaining, it becomes evi- 
dent that they are just as important in schools for. girls 
as in those for boys. The tacit assumption in our old 
school plans that somehow Latin was a masculine and 
French a feminine study, is wholly indefensible. Both 
languages ought to be taught as essential parts of every 
school course which is likely to be prolonged to the age 
of sixteen, and unless it is likely to be prolonged beyond 
that age, more than these two languages ought not to be 
attempted. 

And bearing in mind that the main reason for teaching 
Latin is because of its reflex action on the un- 
derstanding of English, it is well from the ?ompTr?soS* 
first to teach the two languages together. A anafogou?**^ 
few elementary lessons on the necessary parts fjj^y.^ 
of an English sentence, and on the classifica- 
tion of English words, should precede the introduction of 



258 Lectures on Teaching. 

a pupil to the Latin grammar ; but after such lessons 
have been well understood^ it seems to me desirable to 
teach the two grammars together^ comparing at every step 
English constructions and idioms with those of Latin. 
After all we must remember that the knowledge of gram- 
mar as a science is to be had, not from the study of any 
one language 'per se^ but from the comparison and syn- 
thesis of two or more languages. It is not till we have 
seen the differences and the resemblances in the structure 
of two different grammars, that we can get the least per- 
ception of the difference between those principles which 
are accidental or distinctive of particular tongues, and 
those which are fundamental and common to all organized 
languages e^like. 

For instance, how much clearer the nature of the differ- 
ence between Personal and Demonstrative pronouns will 
be, if by some such table as that which follows, you point 
out (a) that our own language once recognized this dis- 
tinction as clearly as the Latin, (h) that we have retained 
in modern use only those forms which are printed in capi- 
tals, and (c) that in the third person we have lost the plural 
forms of the Personal pronoun, and also most of the 
singular forms of the Demonstrative, and have pieced 
together the fragments, so as to make what we now call 
one pronoun, of which he, she, and it are the singular, and 
they and their the plural forms. 





ENGLISH 


AND LATIN PRONOUNS. 










First Person. 










Singular. 


Dual. 




Plural 




Nominative 


Ic 


Ego 


Wit 


We 




Kos 


Genitive 


MiN 


Mei 


Uncer 


Ure 




Nostri 


Dative 


Me 


Mihi 


Unc 


Us 




Nobis 


Accusative 


Me 


Me 


Unc 


Us 




Ms 



The Study of Language, 



259 



Nominative 
Genitive 
Dative 
Accusative 



Second Person. 
Dual. 



Singular, 
Thu Tu 

Thin Tui 

The Te 

The Te 



Git 
Incer 
Inc 
Inc 



Plural. 
Ge Vos 

EowER Vestri 
Eow VoUs 

Eow Vos 



Third Person. 



Masculine 
Nom. He Is 

His Ejus Hir 



Singular. 
Feminine. 

Heo Ea 



Gen. 

Dat. Him Ei 



HiR 



Ace. Hiue Eum Hi 



Neuter. 
Hit Id 
Ejus His Ejus 
Ei Him Ei 
Earn Hit Id 



Plural. 
All genders. 

Hi li 

Heora Eorum 

Heom lis 



Hi 



Eos 



Nom. 

Gen. 

Dat. 

Ace. 

Abl. 



Third Person, Demonstrative. 



Ma<?pulinp Singular. 

Mascunne. Feminine. 

Se IIU Seo Ilia 

Thses Illius Tbaere Illius Thaes Illius 

Tham I Hi Tbsere llli Tham Illi 

Thone Ilium Tha Illam Thsst lllud 

Thy Illo Thsere Hid 



Neuter. 
TliMT lllud 



Thy Illo 



Nominative 

Genitive 

Dative 

Accusative 

Ablative 



Interrogative. 

Masculine and Feminine. 
HWA 
HWCES 
HWAM 

Hwone 
Hwi 



Plural. 
All genders. 

Tha llli 

Thara Illorum 

Tham Illis 

Tha Illos 

Tham Illis 



Neuter. 
HW(ET 
HW(ES 
HWAM 

Hwcet 
Hwi 



It is important that lessons on grammar and on simple 
translation should proceed pari passu from 
the first. This is now recognized by all the 
best writers of elementary Latin books ; but 
the principle, though important, is often lost 
sight of by teachers. They say, and quite truly, " We must 
have our scholars well grounded in the grammar first of 



By connect- 
ing: transla- 
tion with, 
grammar 
Irom tlie 
first. 



2 6o Lectures on Teaching. 

all/' But their notion of grounding consists in requiring 
a great deal of the grammar to be learned by hearty, before 
it is understood or seen in any practical application to the 
actual construction of sentences. It is for this reason that 
the study is felt to be so dry and repulsive to school-boys. 

"We repel a scholar by forcing him to learn at the begin- 
ning the whole list of inflections and conjugations, con- 
taining many forms and distinctions of which he sees 
neither the meaning nor the use, and which he will not 
want for a long time to come. All such synopses are use- 
ful and indeed indispensable ; but they should be re- 
served for a later period of the study, when they will serve 
to collect and classify the knowledge which has been grad- 
ually acquired. With this view many good teachers ob- 
ject even to give the whole set of inflections in a noun to 
be learned by heart ; but prefer to give a separate lesson 
on the genitive, or the accusative, to point out its various 
modifications and its exact meaning, and then to give a 
number of illustrative examples at once, so that theory 
and practice should go together from the first. Consider 
the difference in importance, and in immediate usefulness, 
between the accusative and the vocative case, consider how 
much more important the second declension is than the 
fourth, and you will then see how absurd is the method 
which obliges a boy to commit all these things to memory 
together at the same stage of his career. It is shocking to 
think of the heedless and unscientific use which many 
teachers have made of the mere verbal memory in treating 
this subject, keeping boys two or three years learning a 
great many bare abstractions, before allowing them to 
make any practical use of their knowledge or read a single 
line. It needs to be constantly repeated that memory is a 
faculty of association mainly, and that words and names 



The study of Language, 261 

vvithout useful associations are of no value, and are soon 
rejected by a healthy intelligence. 

The portion of the Latin grammar which, 
for the purpose now in view, requires to be ?f*^Smar 
thus gradually learned by heart is small, and fearaedby 
may be comprised in a very few pages. It may ^^^*- 
consist of : 

(1) The five declensions, including of course all adjec- 
tives and participles. Here of course you will not sepa- 
rate nouns from adjectives, and so go over the same forms 
twice. You will show from the first the identity of the 
inflections in the two. 

(2) The rules for gender, with one or two of the most 
notable exceptions. 

(3) The four conjugations of verbs active and passive, 
with the substantive verb esse. 

(4) The irregular verbs volo, eo, nolo, malo, and possum. 

(5) Three or four of the leading rules of syntax, and 
these only when the time comes for applying them. 

The simple rule of concord, between nominative and 
verb, and between noun and adjective, will come very early. 
Do not attempt to disjoin syntax and accidence as if syn- 
tax were an advanced part of the study. 

And from the first, as sentences are formed, I would call 
attention to the corresponding form in English, or to the 
absence in English of some inflection which is present in 
Latin, and to the expedients by which in our language we 
supply the lack of a more complete accidence and inflec- 
tion. 

Many of the best teachers adopt the crude-form system 
of teaching the Latin and Greek accidence, xhecrude- 
They call attention to the stem of the word form system. 
— ^to that part which is common to all forms, and is inde- 



262 Lectures on Teaching. 

pendent of the inflection, and they show how this stem 
is clothed with one garb after another, according to the 
use which has to be made of it. Such teachers would not 
speak of rex as the root for king, but reg, and would show 
how this root was disguised in the nominative case ; nor 
yorto, portare, to carry, but port; nor ttovS for foot but 
TtoS '^ nor TtpaacTGD but npay. 

'' Ancient languages,^' said Lord Bacon, " were more 
full of declensions, cases, conjugations, tenses, and the 
like : the modern commonly destitute of these do loosely 
deliver themselves in many expressions by prepositions and 
auxiliary verbs : may it not be conjectured that the wits 
of former times were far more acute and subtle than ours 
are ? " 

We must not, I think, accept this inference too readily. 
For indeed the fact of the decay of inflections and of the 
substitution for them of prepositions and auxiliaries, may 
be accounted for on many other hypotheses than that of 
a decline in human acuteness, or in intellectual exacti- 
tude. Yet it is plain that by pointing out at each stage 
in learning the Latin grammar the difference between a 
given modification in the meaning of a word as expressed, 
say by an ablative in Latin, and by a preposition in Eng- 
lish ; by a future tense in Latin, and by the word shall 
or ivill in English ; you are giving to the pupil a truer 
notion of the functions of grammar and the extent of its 
province than if you taught either of these forms by itself. 

As to the vocabulary, I think we often put needless dif- 
TheVo- ficulties in the way by requiring every word 

cabuiary. -j-q "j^g separately hunted out in a dictionary. 
This is a very slow and wearisome process, and after all 
there is no particular value in it. It does nothing to en- 
courage accuracy, and it certainly does not help to give 



The Study of Language. 263 

any special love for the act of research. So in all early 
exercises it is well to bring the vocabulary specially needed 
in those exercises close under the eye of the learner so 
that he has not far to look for them. Later of course it 
is very desirable that he should know how to consult a 
dictionary^ and should often use it ; but if he has to make 
this reference in more, say, than one in ten of the words 
which occur in his lesson, you are placing a needless im- 
pediment in the way of his progress. 

Again, it is desirable that as soon as possible you escape 
from the little graduated exercises in what may 
be called manufactured Latin; — the sort of Ar- usegenu- 
noldian exercise in which " Balbus strikes the sentences, 
head of the father of the maiden ; ^^ — and get mannfac- 
to real sentences, little narratives which have tiie purpose, 
an interest of their own, and which are taken 
from good authors. Of course these should be so graduated 
that the difficulties do not come all at once. But it is bet- 
ter to deal with a short passage, or a verse of an ode, which 
has a prettiness and interest of its own, even though there 
are one or two phrases in it a little beyond the reach of 
the learner's present grammatical knowledge, than to keep 
him too long on bald and meaningless sentences, merely 
because they illustrate a particular kind of grammar rule. 

After a little progress has been made, a teacher may 
wisely select an easy ode of Horace, some passages from 
Ovid; the sentences from Caesar descriptive of his visit tO' 
Britain ; a few of the happier examples of characteriza- 
tion from the Catiline of Sallust, or some eloquent sen- 
tences from an oration of Cicero ; and will make these 
first of all the subject of thorough grammatical investi- 
gation, postponing, however, any special difficulties and 
promising to recur to them hereafter. Then he will give 



264 Lectures on Teaching* 

a full explanation of the meaning, circumstances., and pur- 
pose of the extract, and finally after it has been translated 
carefully, will cause it to be learned by heart. This was 
Jacotot^s method. Tout est daws tout. He required that 
some one interesting passage should be dealt with exhaust- 
ively, and should be made not only a specimen of the way 
in which a passage might be investigated, but a centre 
round which grammatical knowledge might cluster, and to 
which all new acquisitions might be referred by way of 
comparison or contrast. Nothing is more depressing and 
unsatisfactory than to arrange all authors in the order 
of their supposed difficulty, and to say, e.g. that one. 
must spend so many months over Eutropius, and then 
another term on Caesar, and afterwards proceed to Ovid and 
to Virgil, as if these books represented so many advanced 
rules in Arithmetic. A child properly taught Latin with 
the object I have indicated, should above all things be 
interested and made from the first to feel that the Latin 
language is like his own in the variety and attractiveness 
of its contents, and not a series of exercises in grammar 
and vocabulary only. 

For, after all, one of your chief aims in teaching lan- 
guage at all is to make the scholar enjoy litera- 
shouidcome ture, and 2:et an enlare^ed acquaintance with the 
meanings 01 words, ihe sooner we can bend 
our teaching towards these particular purposes the better. 

One way of doing this will be to study some English 
classic pari passu with a Latin book or extract of a cognate 
kind. We have spoken of the simultaneous study of Latin 
and English Grammar. There is an equally good reason 
for the simultaneous reading of Latin and English litera- 
ture. Side by side with the Latin lessons, or alternating 
with them, I would take good sentences from Classical 



The Study of Language, 265 

English books and treat them in the same way. In the 
one lesson you will note down all Latin words which have 
supplied English derivatives, in the other all English words 
which have a Latin origin. You will make a list of them, 
illustrate their meaning and use, the way in which some 
portions of the original meaning have disappeared, and 
other shades or varieties of signification have become at- 
tached to the words since their introduction into English. 
By requiring these words to be collected in a special list 
you will at the same time be increasing your pupil's store 
of Latin words and will make him more accurately ac- 
quainted with the history and significance of words in his 
own language. Constant care should also be taken to se- 
cure that resemblances or differences in the idiom and 
structure of the two languages should be clearly appre- 
hended, and free use should be made of note-books in order 
to promote thoroughness and accuracy. And as the pupil 
becomes further advanced, it is well to take up the parallel 
and simultaneous study of portions of an ancient and a 
modern author, e.g. with the Ars Poetica of Horace, Pope's 
Essay on Criticism or Byron's Hints from Horace might be 
read; with a Satire of Juvenal, Johnson's imitation or 
some well-chosen passage from Dryden ; with an oration 
of Cicero, a famous speech of Burke or Macaulay ; with 
one of the Georgics of Virgil, an extract from Thomson or 
Cowper descriptive of rural life; with a passage from Livy 
or Tacitus, another passage from Gibbon or Froude. 

This is a large subject, and no one of you can be more 
conscious than I am of the inadequacy of such few hints 
as can be given on it in a short lecture. Those of you who 
are engaged in teaching Latin or Greek will find it neces- 
sary to read much and to think more before you will attain 



2 66 Lectures on Teaching, 

a satisfactory course of procedure. By far the wisest and 
most suggestive of old books on tlie methods of teaching is 
Eoger Ascham's Scholemaster, which explains fully his sys- 
tem of teaching by translation and re-translation. He 
would go through a Latin passage and translate it into 
English, writing the translation down carefully; then after 
an interval of an hour or two, he would give the scholar 
those English sentences for re-translation into Latin, and 
as he well shows, whether this be done by memory or by 
invention it is almost equally useful. I strongly advise 
also the reading of Mr. Quick's admirable book on Educa- 
tional Reformers, for that work not only summarizes well 
the main excellencies of Ascham's method, but it also gives 
an account of the methods of teaching Latin recommended 
by Milton, by Comenius, by Locke, and by others — subjects 
which it is beyond my province to discuss here. Nor ought 
I to omit the mention of Mr. Henry Sidgwick's thought- 
ful paper in the Essays on a Liberal Education^ and of Mr. 
D'Arcy Thompson's Day-dreams of a Schoolmaster, which 
is full of practical suggestion as to rational and simple 
means of teaching grammar. 

In what I have said hitherto we have been chiefly con- 
cerned with the use which should be made of 
Latin^fna^^ Latin in secondary schools. And this, as we 
Schooiy"^ have seen, does not aim at making what are 
called "^ scholars," nor at using Latin as a ve- 
hicle for the expression of the learner's own thoughts, but 
mainly at enabling him to understand the laws of lan- 
guage, and especially of his own language, better. Now 
what is the place, if any, which Latin should hold in a 
Primary school or in one whose course will probably ter- 
minate at 14 ? 

There has been much contention as to the expediency 



The Study of Lang uage . 267 

of including in the Schedule of additional ^' Specific Sub- 
jects/^ attached to the Code of the Education Department, 
lessons on the elements of Latin Grammar. By some this 
is defended on the grounds that such knowledge will be 
serviceable to those promising scholars whom it may be 
worth while to encourage to go forward to a secondary 
school, and that in the open competition for admission to 
such schools Latin grammar is often one of the required 
subjects. But the truth is that at the age of 12 or 13, at 
which it is fitting to select such a pupil for an exhibition, 
Latin ought not to be required at all. It is of far more 
importance to secure that his intelligence shall have been 
quickened by the ordinary discipline of a good primary 
school, than that he should have been exceptionally trained 
for the exhibition, and he will learn Latin all the better 
and faster in the higher school for having received such 
discipline. Moreover, the Primary school has no right to 
sacrifice the interests of the mass of its scholars to those 
of the exhibitioner ; and in the interests of the mass it is 
impossible to defend the teaching of a few fragments of 
Latin grammar which have no relation to anything else 
they are learning, or are likely to learn. 

So I do not think it wise in Elementary Schools to at- 
tempt the formal study of Latin. But there is a sense in. 
which the language has claims which should not be dis- 
regarded even here. Some lessons should be given show- 
ing that there is a Latin language, explaining who used 
to speak it, and how and why so many of our words are 
derived from it. Even in the humblest school-course the 
fact that other languages exist, and that there are many 
ways of expressing the same notion, ought to be under- 
stood. Then it is well to teach a few of the simpler tests 
by which words of Latin origin may be identified by ter- 



268 Lectures on Teaching, 

minations or otherwise ; and to explain the more common 
of the phonetic changes which words undergo in becoming 
English. These should not be presented in the form of 
a list or table^ but be brought out by induction from exam- 
ples, of which some may be suggested by the teacher, but 
the most supplied by the scholars. 

The etymology of many Latinized words might be ad- 
vantageously explained. But here a good deal 
otEninsh^ of caution is needed. Tell a scholar who is not 
^°^ ^' learning Latin that commit comes from con 

with, and mitto I send, or perceive from per and capio, or 
ohedience from oh and audire^ and you have simply given 
him a showy and unmeaning piece of knowledge, and 
rather hindered than helped his conception of the real 
significance of the English derivative. The only words in 
relation to which the mere learning of the Latin etymol- 
ogy by itself secures any useful purpose, are words like 
submarine or soliloquy, where the etymology brings out the 
meaning without the least ambiguity. But if you will take 
the trouble to show by a few examples what changes and 
modifications of meaning Latin words have often under- 
gone in the process of becoming English, the etymological 
exercise will have a real value. In particular you will find 
it useful to trace out the changes by which words which 
have at first a literal and physical meaning come in time to 
have a metaphorical meaning. You take the word fortis 
and show it in fortress and afterwards in fortitude or com- 
fort. So Morsel and remorse, Effigy and fiction, Image and 
imagination. Pound and ponder. Refract and infringe, In- 
teger and integrity, give occasion for pointing out how the 
application of a word to some moral or spiritual truth is 
subsequent to its physical meaning, and that we may illus- 
trate a moral truth by a physical image, but never a physi- 
cal fact by an image drawn from the world of thought. A 



The Study of Language. 269 

few of the most familiar Latin roots may then be taken, 
e.g. pose; and the pupils may be invited to supply words 
containing this syllable, — suppose, expose, dispose, interpose, 
repose, and to show what is the common element of mean- 
ing in all of them. 

Afterwards it is well to call attention to the double 
signification of the Latin prefixes, to show, e.g. prefixes 
that they have a physical or prepositional .and affixes, 
meaning in some words, as in transport, wvade, e.Tpel, emit, 
m^ercollegiate, ?'egain, ea:^ra-mural, perforate ; and an ad- 
verbial or derived meaning as ^?'(X?isfigure, tncompiete, ex- 
perience, eloquence, ^M^erjection, respect, extrayagant, 
perish. In teaching these prefixes it is needful to show 
how inadequate a notion of their meaning is obtained by 
looking into a dictionary and simply taking their primitive 
signification as prepositions, without also taking into ac- 
count their secondary meaning when they come to be used 
adverbially, in the composition of verbs. 

If in these ways Latin — not its formal grammar, but a 
part of its vocabulary, and such facts about the language 
as serve to explain the structure and meaning of English 
words — be recognized as a subject of study in the primary 
school, it will be found very stimulating and helpful to 
those who may afterwards -have opportunities of learning 
more of the language ; and at the same time, it will be 
of substantial value even to those who will enjoy no such 
opportunities, and is in no sense out of harmony with all 
else that is taught in the ordinary elementary course. 

In teaching a modern foreign language the objects we 
are to have in view are not wholly identical 
with those we have already described. It is foreSnian- 
true French may in one sense serve the same ^*^®^' 
purpose as Latin ; if its grammar is taught side by side 



270 Lectures on Teaching. 

with, that of English^ and made the subject of constant 
comparison and contrast. But the structure of French 
grammar does not furnish either comparison or contrast 
quite so instructive as that of Latin for purposes of philo- 
logical discipline, or for throwing light on the principles 
of grammar yer se. The main reason for teaching French 
or German is that the learner may read books and con- 
verse in that language, and use it as an instrument of 
Their special thought and communication. That, therefore, 
purpose. which is the first and main object of teaching 

Latin — the investigation of the logic of language, and the 
reflex action of its grammar on the structure of other lan- 
guages and particularly of our own — is only the secondary 
and subordinate object to be kept in view in the teaching 
of French. And that which is the principal reason for 
learning French, viz. that we may be able to think, to 
speak, and to write in it, is not, for purposes of ordinary 
education, contemplated in the study of Latin at all. And 
it is only by keeping this fundamental difference in view 
that we can arrive at right methods of teaching either. 
Obviously, some of the principles and methods already 
discussed apply equally to Latin and French. 
re°sTmWe*^^^ Both are foreign languages. In both we have 
^*^^' to begin at the beginning, to learn vocabulary 

as well as grammar. In both it is essential to begin with 
a few nouns, to attach them first to verbs, afterwards to 
adjectives, afterwards to other nouns in the various case- 
relationships. In both it is equally important that new 
rules should be learned only if and when they are wanted, 
and should be seen in their applications and applied di- 
rectly. In both there is the same necessity for kindling 
the interest of your scholar, by connecting the words he 
learns with living realities, with things and events within 



The Study of Language, 271 

his comprehension. In both it is equally desirable to make 
constant reference to analogous usages and constructions 
jn English. 

But besides this^ it is from the first necessary to treat 
French conversationally, to cause it to be how they 
talked as well as learned. It is not certain f^^-^^^^^^ 
that lessons ever so careful on elementary sounds in French 
are the best helps to this. At first little familiar sen- 
tences are better. I have seen in one of the best schools 
in England what was called a " parrot class/' in which 
little girls were learning to utter French phrases and 
nursery rhymes, with the right pronunciation and inflec- 
tion as a whole, and were told roughly what was the mean- 
ing of them. This is what is often called the Mastery 
System. By it children are not at first allowed to see 
French written, but are made to acquire a thoroughly 
French pronunciation and intonation parrot-like, before 
they begin to have their attention directed to the sounds 
of separate syllables, to the meaning of separate words 
and idioms, or to translation and re-translation. 

Such exercises are particularly useful. In talking we 
want to be trained to catch the meaninoj of a 

, . , . p They should 

whole sentence without thmkins^ 01 its par- from the first 

he spoken 
ticular parts, and the laborious synthesis of rather than 
^ ' • n written. 

the various elements of a sentence is, as we all 
know, a rather slow process. Some therefore of the early 
work of teaching a young class French ought to corre- 
spond to th& way in which a little child learns English 
from its mother or its nurse, i.e. in little sentences which 
at first carry the whole meaning with them, and are not 
thought of as capable of analysis. For the special pur- 
pose contemplated in teaching French, the sooner the 



272 Lectures on Teaching. 

child learns something which he feels a pleasure in com- 
mitting to memory, the better. 

It is evident that talking in the language and learning by 
heart are much more important here than in Latin. No 
lesson in French which is confined to translation and read- 
ing is worth much, if it is not follow^ed up by actual con- 
versation. Even the simplest affirmative sentence admits 
of being turned into an interrogative, or furnishes the 
material for a question and answer of some kind, which 
however slightly varied, obliges the child to make the 
words his own. And unless the learner makes the words 
his own, and learns actually to use them, his progress is 
very unsatisfactory. Then we must remember that in seek- 
ing to get a store of vocables and words for use, it is not 
a large number of nouns and adjectives which we want 
first, but a few familiar locutions, the phrases for asking, 
for asserting, for denying, for inquiring ; into which 
phrases, nouns and adjectives soon fit themselves as fast 
as they are known. Mr. Quick quotes from Marcel's Study 
of Languages a very significant sentence, " Half the knowl- 
edge with twice the power of applying it is better than 
twice the knowledge with half the power of application." 
To recognize the meaning and understand the gram- 
matical forms of words as they are printed in 
eye. Frencii a book Suffices in learning Latin, and is itself 
a considerable achievement. It is the eye 
through which you want to approach the understanding 
in this case. The ear and the voice have little or noth- 
ing to do with it ; for scarcely anybody ever has occa- 
sion to use a single sentence of spoken Latin, or to listen 
to Latin and interpret it at the same time. But in French 
or German it is the ear and the voice we want to cultivate 



The Study of Language, 273 

quite as much as the eye, and much therefore of every 

good French lesson should go on with the books closed. 

It is especially important to use many exercises in what 

may be called audition — the listening to ^ ^._ 

•^ -m • , ,• Audition. 

French sentences and rapidly interpreting 

them. In-^nost schools, there is not even enough of dic- 
tation in French, which is obviously a simple and necessary 
exercise, and which of course you will not neglect. But 
even this does not suffice, for the measured careful utter- 
ance proper to a dictation lesson is very unlike ordinary 
speech, and many scholars will write a very good exercise 
from dictation, who would be quite unable to follow a 
conversation or even a sermon or oration delivered in the 
ordinary way. Is it not the painful experience of many 
of us who may be very familiar with book-French and 
able to read the language fluently, that when we once 
cross the Channel, and hear it rapidly uttered, we are 
confused, and cannot follow it fast enough. Here and 
there a word which happens to be the key-word or sig- 
nificant word in the sentence wholly escapes us ; and this 
causes the entire sentence to be unintelligible. We won- 
der why people will talk so fast, forgetting that our own 
habitual speech is often just as rapid, just as full of con- 
tractions and elisions ; and that after all we do not know 
a language for speaking purposes unless we can think as 
fast as an ordinary person talks. Now the true remedy 
for this is constant exercise in listening either to read- 
ing or to speech, uttered at the rapid rate of ordinary 
conversation. And the power to make a right use of such 
an exercise is far more easily attained when very young, 
and when the mind is unencumbered by thoughts of analy- 
sis and grammar, than in later life. It should not there- 



2 74 Lectures on Teaching, 

fore be postponed and treated as an advanced exercise, 
but frequently adopted from the beginning. 

Mr. Bowen, in an excellent paper read at the late Head 
Masters' Conference, recommended that with advanced 
scholars the occasional use of a French book of reference 
as an alternative for an English one is useful. He recom- 
mends reference to a good French gazetteer or dictionary, 
or to the BiograpMe Universelle, in addition to books of 
the same kind in English. To this it may be added that 
some of the scientific manuals by Guillemin or Papillon 
are as easily read by an elder boy who has learned French 
as English manuals, and often excel our books in style and 
in clearness of arrangement. The sooner you can make a 
French book of use for reference, or for learning a thing 
at first-hand, the more rapid will be the progress of your 
pupil. 

Some exercises in invention and arrangement are given 
Exercises in ^^ most of the books, but not, as it seems to 

invention j^^ enous^h. There are French sentences to 
and composi- ^ o 

tio^- be translated into English and English into 

French. But there are not enough exercises in which 
learners are required to make sentences of their own. 
These, however, are very important. At first a noun, and 
a verb, and an adjective may be given, in order that two 
or three little sentences may be made out of them ; after- 
wards a few nouns may be given, and the pupil told to 
put at his own discretion appropriate verbs to them. 
Then verbs or adjectives may be added and required to 
be added to suitable nouns. Afterwards particular idioms 
or phrases may be given, and the pupil asked to construct 
sentences containing them. Thus at first you give the 
material for such sentences — ^but little by little, less should 
be given, and the scholars should be required to discover 



The Study of Language. 275 

and supply words for themselves. And whether the re- 
quired words are supplied from memory, or are hunted 
out and selected from a book, the exercise is equally yal- 
uable. 

But although we thus dwell chiefly on the importance 
of the better cultivation of the ear and voice in teaching 
a modern foreign language, since these are just the points 
we are most in danger of forgetting, book-work being al- 
ways more easy and seductive to teachers than the kind 
of oral practice which makes constant demands on your 
skill, your promptitude, and your memory ; we must not 
of course overlook the fact that the language has also to 
be written, and its grammar thoroughly understood. You 
cannot therefore dispense with written exercises, especially 
in grammar and in composition, of the same kind as you 
would find necessary in teaching Latin. These, however, 
are precisely the things which good modem books supply 
in great abundance. 

Lastly, a word may be said on the question of the 
teachers of foreign languages. It is generally xj^g choice • 
considered indispensable to have a Frenchman of teachers. 
to teach French, and a German to teach German. Buf 
experience shows us that the power to speak French does 
not always co-exist with he power to teach it ; that French 
ushers as a class are without the general liberal educa- 
tion which you look for in English assistants ; and that 
as specialists, whose position renders them unable to look 
on the school work as a whole, they often fail to secure 
authority, or even to secure full knowledge for their own 
subject. It is obvious too that most of them are at a 
great disadvantage in the explanation in English of the 
meaning of the rules, and especially in comparing French 
idioms with English. Accordingly, in some of the best 



276 Lectures on Teaching. 

schools the modern language masters preferred are 
scholarly Englishmen^ who have lived for a time abroad, 
and who have learned French or German well enough to 
think and converse well in it. And where such teachers 
are to be had, I should be disposed to prefer them. The 
objection to this is that the pronunciation is not likely to 
be perfect. But it is very easy to overrate the importance 
of what is often so much vaunted in ladies' schools, the 
purely Parisian accent, and to pay too heavy a price for 
it. After all, this accent is not the first thing an English- 
man wants. He will acquire it if he goes abroad ; and 
if he never acquires it, the power to express himself and 
to derive pleasure from reading French or German lit- 
erature is much more important. 



The English Language, 277 



IX. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

We have tried to elucidate in the last lecture these gen- 
eral truths, That all study of lansruapfe is in 

J to & q^^^g relation 

itself disciplinalj and helps greatly the devel- otEngUsii 

opment of one particular class of mental linguistic 

^ , . 1 . studies, 

power ; That some of the reasons which jus- 
tify the teaching of Latin and Greek are identical with 
those which make us teach French or German, but that 
others are wholly different ; That Latin is to be learned 
as a literary language, and with . a view to grammatical 
and logical training m.ainly, and not for purposes of ex- 
pression or intercourse ; but That a modern language is 
learned mainly for the sake of expression and intercourse, 
and only incidentally and in a subordinate sense as a lin- 
guistic discipline. The questions arise now — Why and 
how should we teach English, our own language ? What 
place in a complete scheme of instruction should the ver- 
nacular tongue as a separate study be made to occupy ? 

The answer to this question depends of course on the 
width and extent of your course, and on the nature of the 
other provisions which that course affords for prosecuting 
the study of grammar as a science. It has been said that 
the true perception of that science is the result of the 
synthesis and comparison of two languages, and is well- 
nigh unattainable in the learning of one. For that rea- 
son, I have already urged that in the teaching of Latin 
or of French, continual reference should be made to ana- 



278 Lectures on Teaching, 

logous forms and constructions in English. And no doubt 
in schools in which other languages are taught in this 
way^ much of English is learned incidentally by com- 
parison, analogy, and contrast, rather than in the form of 
intentional lessons on English, per se. 

It is mainly in this incidental and indirect way, that 
most English scholars have come to learn their 
largrammar ^^^'^ language, and have very often come to 
indirecay^^^ learn it well. And hence it is not uncommon 
taUy?"*^^^' ^^ ^^^^^ English grammar spoken of as if it 
were wholly useless, and almost as if it were 
non-existent. And we are to inquire to-day whether this 
distrust of the value of conscious and systematic instruc- 
tion in English is well founded, or whether such instruc- 
tion can be made to serve a real educational purpose. We 
know that in France and Germany the study of the ver- 
nacular tongue is treated with more respect than with 
ourselves ; that in France especially, exercises in the 
structure, logical analysis, and composition of French oc- 
cupy a good deal of attention even in schools in which 
other languages are taught ; and that it is probably to 
this cause we may attribute the greater ease and skill with 
which as a rule a Frenchman uses his own language, as 
compared with an Englishman of corresponding educa- 
tional standing and advantages. The study of our own 
tongue appears to deserve more respectful treatment than 
it receives even in our higher schools. It certainly is a 
valuable, indeed an indispensable educational instrument 
in Primary schools, in which no other language is taught. 

Of one thing, however, we may be sure from the first. 
Grammar ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^ rules for enabling English 
as an Art. people to speak correctly that English grammar 
has the least value. This is the popular conception of gram- 



The English Language, 279 

mar, and it is a very erroneous one. Lindley Murray has 
expressed this in a definition. "Grammar is tlie art of 
speaking and writing the English language with propriety/' 
Whoever tries to learn or to teach grammar with that ob- 
ject in view is doomed to disappointment. No doubt there 
is a sense, and a very true sense, in which all careful inves- 
tigation into the structure of words and their relations 
gives precision to speech. But this is an indirect process. 
The direct operation and use of grammar rules in improv- 
ing our speech and making it correct can hardly be said 
to exist at all. 

For we all learn to speak the English language in one 
fashion or another without the aid of books. 
Some of the best and purest speakers of the acquired 
language have either never learned grammar, 
or are not in any way consciously guided to correct speech 
by a knowledge of grammatical rules. They have learned 
to use their own language hy using it, by imitation and 
habit, and by the fine intuition which has led them to imi- 
tate good models rather than bad. If the " art of speaking 
and writing the English language with propriety '' is the 
one thing contemplated by learning grammar, the ordinary 
means are very imperfectly adapted to the end ; for the 
study of grammar from a scholastic text-book, even if the 
whole of it is learned from beginning to end, is very little 
helpful in improving the pupiFs speech and writing. The. 
faults which occur in speech, the confusions, the clumsy 
constructions, the misuse of words, and their mispronun- 
ciation, are not as a rule sins against grammar, properly 
so called, and are not to be set right by learning English 
accidence or syntax. The rules given in books have little 
or no practical value. For instance, " Transitive verbs 
and prepositions govern the objective case.'' What does 



28o Lectures on Teaching. 

this mean ? In English nouns there is no objectiye case 
distinguishable from the nominative at all. In pronouns 
there are four or five survivals of old datives, which now 
serve both as dative and accusative, and may therefore be 
called objective. They are me^ thee, him, her, them, and 
whom. And the rule in question amounts to an injunction 
that we should use these six words in their proper places, 
and not say, " Give I the book,^^ or, ^^ Send the money to 
he." But these are faults which the most ignorant child is 
in no danger of committing, and against which no warning 
is needed. Considered therefore as a means of regulating 
our speech, this and the like rules are utterly valueless. 

If therefore we have in view mainly the practical art of 
using the language in speech or writing with good taste 
and correctness, this particular result is probably best to 
be attained by talking to the pupil, by taking care he hears 
little but good English, by correcting him when he is 
wrong, by making him read the best authors, by practising 
him much in writing, and when he makes a mistake, by 
requiring him to write the sentence again without one. It 
will certainly not be attained by setting him to learn Mur- 
ray's, or indeed any other grammar. 

Grammar, however, is a science as well as an art, and 
Grammar as ^^^^^ ^^^^ point of view it investigates the struc- 
a Science. ^^j.g ^f language, the history and formation of 
words, and the manner in which the mechanism of gram- 
matical form is fitted to fulfil the great end of language — 
the just, subtle, and forcible expression of human thought.^ 
And if a book on grammar will help me to this end, and 
will reveal to me the laws and principles which underlie 

^ " On n'apprend pas plus k parler, et a gcrire avec les regies de 
la grammaire, qu'on n'apprend a marcher par les lois de Fequilibre." 
—St. Pieere. 



The English Language. 281 

and account for the speech which I am using every day, 
then the study of such a book will have a scientific value 
for me quite apart from any practical help which it may 
give in avoiding solecisms, and in " speaking grammatic- 
ally " as it is called. Such study of grammar, though it 
seems rather to have a theoretic than a practical character, 
will incidentally serve the purpose of making the speech 
more correct. If, however, that purpose is contemplated 
as the first which is to be served in teaching, we not only 
shall not attain it, but we shall fail altogether to achieve 
the much higher ends which may be reached by the teach- 
ing of grammar as a science. 

Now the notable thing about manuals of English gram- 
mar until very lately was that they were all Manuals of 
fashioned on the same model as a Latin or Grammar. 
Greek grammar. There were Orthography, Etymology, 
Syntax, and Prosody. The learner begins with consider- 
ing letters, and the whole alphabet is printed on the first 
page, and duly classified into vowels, consonants, semi- 
vowels, and diphthongs. Then he is conducted to Ety- 
mology, and to the separate study of words, which he is 
called on to classify and decline. Then comes Syntax, 
when he is invited to deal with sentences, and the relation 
of their parts, and to learn rules of concord and of govern- 
ment. Finally, he reaches Prosody, under which head he 
finds punctuation, metre, and other grammatical luxuries. 

But long before a child comes to the commencement of 
such a book, he has learned to speak, and to 
use his native tongue. He knows the meaning laJianguaie 
of sentences, and he thinks by means of the Ian- SulhtV 
guage. That which is in teaching French the ^"^ ^^^^' 
iiltim.ate goal of your ambition, conversation and freedom 
in using words^ is the very point of departure in the case 



282 Lectures on Teaching. 

of your own vernacular speech. Your pupil has already 
attained it. Hence the methods of teaching a native and 
a foreign language are fundamentally different. The slow, 
synthetical process appropriate in the one case, of begin- 
ning with words — in the case of German and Greek, even 
with the alphabet, — and building up at first short sen- 
tences, then longer sentences, is wholly illogical and absurd 
in the case of the other. To a child a sentence is easier 
than a word, the cognition of a word is easier than that 
of a syllable as a separate entity ; and the syllable itself is 
something easier than the power or significance of a single 
letter. And hence the way to teach English grammar is 
to begin with the sentence, because that is something 
known, and to proceed analytically. If other languages are 
to be learned by synthesis, our own should be learned by 
the opposite process of analysis, and whereas we learn a 
foreign language through and by means of its grammar, we 
must learn and discover English grammar through and by 
means of the language. 

Grammar strictly defined is the logic of language in so 
far and in so far only as it finds expression in the inflec- 
tions and forms of words. In Latin forms you find this 
logic expressed with some fulness and scientific accuracy. 
In English it is expressed in an unscientific and very in- 
complete way. But the logic of language, which is the 
basis of all grammar, is discernible alike in both, and our 
business is to investigate that, whether it reveals itself 
fully in grammatical forms or not. 

The main conclusions to which we have thus been led 
are four : (1) That of pure grammar there is very little 
in the English language. (2) That this little when dis- 
covered has scarcely any practical bearing on the improve- 
m^ent of our speech. (3) That nevertheless the study of 



The English Language. 283 

the English language is worth pursuing^ and if the expres- 
sion " English Grammar " be enlarged so as to connote 
exercises in the logic, history, formation and relation of 
words, it will designate one of the most fruitful and in- 
teresting of school studies ; and (4) That whatever is to 
be learned of a vernacular language, must be learned by 
the method of analysis, and not by the synthetic process, 
which is proper in studying a foreign tongue. 

We may now apply these conclusions in succession to 
several of the most useful forms of English exercise. 

One of your earliest lessons consists of a view of the 
parts of speech. The books would have you be- ciassifica- 
gin by saying there are nine of them, and by *^**^* 
requiring the pupil to learn by heart the definition and 
some examples of each. But it is surely a much more 
rational method to begin with a sentence which the scholar 
already understands, and so to draw from him the simple 
facts that in using language there are two essential con- 
ditions, viz., 

(1) That we should have something to talk about ; 

(2) That we should have something to say. 

You may illustrate this by taking a little sentence. 

The child sleeps 

as a type, and you say that the former word is called the 
Subject or the thing talked about, and is a Noun, and the 
latter the Predicate, the thing said, and is a Verb. 

Then you point out that each of these words admits of 
extension, and takes an attribute ; 

The little child sleeps soundly, 

and you show that the one word enlarges the subject and 
the other the predicate. You then invite the scholars to 



284 Lectures on Teaching. 

give you other sentences containing the same elements^, 
and after a few examples you give names to the words 
which fulfil these two functions and call the one an Ad- 
jective and the other an Adverb. 

Then you seek to attach other notions to the first, and 
you do this in two ways : 

The child sleeps on the bed. 

The child sleeps because he is tired. 

In the former case you have added a word, in the latter 
a new sentence, the nature of the connection thus estab- 
lished being shown by the word in italics. Hence is de- 
duced the necessity for two sorts of connective words, the 
Preposition which attaches a noun, and the Conjunction 
which attaches a sentence to what has gone before. 

These are the six essential elements of organized speech, 
and the logical order of their importance is 



Subject 


. . Noun. 


Predicate 


. . Jerh. 


Adjunct to Subject 


. . Adjective. 


" Predicate 


. . Adverb. 


Connective of Word . 


. . Preposition. 


" Sentence 


i . . Conjunction. 



Then you go on to show that you have not exhausted 
all the words in the language, but that there remain — 

(1) The Pronoun, whose use you illustrate by examples. 
It is not a new element in language, but is simply used as 
a convenient substitute for a noun in certain cases. 

(2) The Article, which is seen to be a kind of adjective 
used in a very special sense. 

You show that these two though useful are not indis- 
pensable, and that Latin did without the last altogether. 
Lastly you point out that what is often called the ninth 



The English Language. 285 

part of speech, the Interjection, is in fact not a part of 
speech at all ; but as Home Tooke called it " the miserable 
refuge of the speechless/^ It is the one form of human 
utterance which obeys no law, and is closest akin to the 
screams of a bird, or to the growling of a dog ; and we 
never use it unless for a moment we part with the privilege 
of humanity, descend to the level of the lower animals, 
and cease to use organized language altogether. 

Now all this could be well taught with varied illustra- 
tions in three lessons, and the outcome of it would show 
itself in some such black-board sketch or summary as this : 

Essential Paets of Speech. 
I. — Notional. 

1. Words capable of forming the subject of a sentence Nouns. 

2. Words capable of forming the predicate .... Yerhs. 

3. Words capable of serving as attributes to Nouns . Adjectives. 

4. Words capable of serving as attributes to Verbs . Adverbs. 

II. — Relational or Connective. 

5. Words connecting Nouns with sentences .... Prepositions. 

6. Words connecting sentences with sentences . . . Conjunctions. 

Non-essential but Serviceable Parts of Speech. 

7. Words capable of being used as substitutes for Nouns Pronouns. 

8. Adjectives with a special and limited use .... Articles. 



9. Extra- Grammatical Utterances ..... Interjections. 



In further investigation of the use of each class of words 
you afterwards bring out by examples these facts : 

Nouns may serve [a) with the verb "to be," as predicates; (ft) 
with transitive verbs, as objects or completion of predicates; (c) 
with prepositions, as adjuncts either adjectival or adverbial. 

A verb of complete predication is Intransitive; one which makes 
an incomplete assertion is Transitive. 



286 Lectures on Teaching. 

Pronouns which have in them a connective element of meaning 
are called Relatives. 

So that instead of beginning with the definitions I 
should end with tliem. The process is one of induction 
and analysis from the first. You begin with the concrete 
whole — a sentence with which learners are already familiar, 
you work down to its parts, you seek to discriminate them 
carefully ; then, and not till then, you give them names, 
and finally by way of clinching your lesson you ask for 
the meanings of those names, and after a few experiments 
of the Socratic kind, may succeed in evolving a good defi- 
nition of each. In doing this explain if you like the sig- 
nificance of the name. But this is not always easy, and 
when easy not always helpful. Our grammatical termin- 
ology is so arbitrary that an etymological inquiry into the 
meaning of the words Preposition, Infinitive, Adjective, will 
rather mislead than otherwise. 

At this point you will find how useful it is to give ex- 
amples illustrative of the way in which the same word may 
be used in very different ways : e.g. 

(1) Rest comes to the weary. They rest from their labors. 

(2) Light is diffused by reflection. This is a ligM room. They 

light the candle. 

(3) Reading is a useful art. They have been reading an hour. 

She has a reading book. 

By a few tentative sentences of this kind you will show 
that it is impossible to label a word with a name while it 
stands alone, that in fact it is not a part of speech at all 
until it is seen in a sentence. Follow this up by asking 
such a question as this : " Take the word Sound and put 
it into a sentence so that it shall be a noun — an adjective 
- — a verb," Much exercise in the making of sentences to 



The English Language. 287 

illustrate each new distinction as it is pointed out, is in- 
dispensable. 

You go back then to the Noun, the Adjective, and the 
Advert, and show that though each is generally expressed 
by one word, each may be expanded into a phrase or sen- 
tence which is equivalent to it. 

E.g. (1) The ram&ow; appears Simple noun. 

That you have wronged me doth appear 

in this Noun sentence. 

(2) The small house is mine Simple adjective. 

The house on the hill is mine .... Adjective phrase. 
Tlie house lohich you saw is mine . . Adjective sentence. 

(3) She sings sweetly Simple adverh. 

She sings hi the garden Adverbial phrase. 

She sings when she is asked ..... Adverbial sentence. 

When such preliminary exercises have been thought out 
the scholar will be ready for the more complete Lo^jcai 
analysis of the parts of sentences and their re- -A-naiysis. 
lations to each other. Tliis is an intellectual exercise of 
considerable value. It is not grammar, it is true ; it is 
rather elementary logic ; but it lies at the root of gram- 
mar ; and when you have first taught your pupils to recog- 
nize the elements of a sentence and their mutual correla- 
tion, you will be in a position to ask how far each logical 
distinction has a grammatical or formative distinction to 
correspond to it. 

As to the laying out of the result of such an analysis, 
there is of course no absolutely right or wrong method. 
But I would warn you against the common method of 
making a square diagram and trying to fit every sentence 
into it, e.g. : 



288 



Lectures on Teaching, 



Subject. 


Predicate. 


Object, or 

completion of 

Predicate. 


Extension. 


Tlie curfew 


tolls 


the knell 


of parting day. 



This is something like tlie bed of Procrustes, and has a 
double disadvantage. It often leaves great vacant spaces, 
and it fails altogether to show the real relations of words, 
phrases, and sentences to one another. 

Some sentences contain only one or two elements, and 
may be dismissed in two lines. Others require the state- 
ment of many more particulars than are provided for in 
such a diagram. The essential points in relation to the 
analysis are (1) That an account shall be given of every 
separate logical element in the sentence ; (2) That the 
meaning and force of each of the connective words which 
are not strictly in the sentence but which indicate the 
character of subordinate sentences, shall be described ; 
and (3) That the relation of the several sentences to each 
other, w^hether as co-ordinate or subordinate, shall also be 
clearly shown. These conditions will be found to be ful- 
filled in the example on the next page. 

After some exercises of this kind in logical parsing, or 
concurrently with them, it is useful to give 
the ordinary drill in grammatical parsing.. 
But here it is necessary to distinguish between 
the proper province of logic and that of pure grammar. 
For instance, the difference between Common and Proper 
nouns is the logical difference between universals and 
particulars, and has no place in grammar whatever. And 
the distinction of sex is in no sense logical, and in Eng- 
lish is hardly grammatical. It determines the form of 



Gram- 
matical 
Analysis. 



The English Language, 



289 



our nouns and pronouns in only a very limited number 
of cases ; and we have no conventional sex^ as in Latin and 
French, which affects the concord of adjectives. Hence 
the enumeration of Grender among the attributes of Eng- 
lish words has little to do with Etymology and less with 
Syntax, and in fact serves no grammatical purpose at all. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go Specimen of 

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — Analysis. 
To the island valley of Avilion; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns, 
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. 

Tennyson. 





1 But 


Particle connecting sentence with 
the preceding. 


A. 


2 now 

3 farewell 


Adverbial adjunct to 3. 


Predicate. 




r 4 1 


Subject. 


■R 


j 5 am going 
1 6 a long w ay 


Predicate. 


X>4 


Adverbial adjunct to 5. 




t 7 with these 


( ( lid 




I 8 [whom] 


Object. 


c. 


■j 9 thou 


Subject. 




( 10 seest 


Predicate. 




11 If 


Particle introducing sentence D. 




( 12 indeed 


Adverbial adjunct to 14. 


D. 


\ 13 I 


Subject. 




( 14 go 


Predicate. 




15 For 


Particle introducing sentence E. 




16 all my mind 


Subject. 


E. 


■ 17 is clouded 


Predicate. 




( 18 with a doubt 


Adverbial adjunct to 17. 




[ 19 To the island 




Continua- 
tion of B. 


■ } valley 


Adverbial adjunct to 5. 




( 20 of Avilion 


Adjectival adjunct to ' ' valley " in 19, 



290 



Lectures on Teaching. 





1 


- 21 Where 


=in which. Adverbial adjunct to 22. 






22 falls 


Predicate. 






23 not 


Negative adjunct to, 22. 






24 hail 


Subject. 






25 or rain 


Alternative subject. 






, 26 or any snow 


Alternative subject. 






' 27 nor 


Particle showing- relation of F to G. 






28 ever 


Adverbial adjunct to 30. 




^ 


29 wind 


Subject. 






30 blows 


Predicate. 






31 loudly 


Adverbial adjunct to 30. 




32 But 


Particle introducing co-ordinate ad- 
versative sentence to F and G. 






f 33 it 


Subject. 






34 lies 


Predicate. 






35 deep-meadowed 


Adjectival adjunct to 33. 






36 happy 


i( (< it 






37 fair, with orchard 






lawns and bow- 






ery hollows 


t It tt 






38 crowned with 


[37. 






summer sea 


Adjectival adjunct to "hollow" in 




' 39 Where 
40 I 


Adverbial adjunct to 41. 




Subject. 




- 41 will heal me 


Predicate. 




42 of my grievous 






Pi 


(^ wound 


Adverbial adjunct to 41. 


A. 


[•incipal sentence. 




B. 


" " co-ordinate with A. 


C. 


Adjective sentence to the word " these " in B. 


D. 


Conditional sentence subordinate to B. 


E. 


Causative sentence subordinate to D. 


F. 


Adjective sentence to 


" valley " in B. 


G. 


Co-ordinate sentence to F. 


H. 


Co-ordinate sentence to G. 


I. 


Adverbial sentence to 34 in H. 



Note. — The last sentence I. might be interpreted in the same 
way as F., as an adjective sentence qualifying 33. 



The English Language, 291 

Let me now give you an illustration of another kind of 
lesson^ in which, as indeed in all other in- 
quiries into English, a knowledge of the ele- Auxiliary 
ments of Old English Grammar will be of 
great help to you. Begin with a few examples of the use 
of Auxiliary verbs. You observe that there is no inflec- 
tional provision for Perfect, Pluperfect, or Future tense 
in English, nor for the Potential Mood, but these modifi- 
cations of meaning are shown by auxiliaries. The old 
grammars recognized a fundamental distinction between 
this method and that of accidence. In Ben Jonson's 
Grammar for instance, you will find the statement that 
the English language has no Future tense, but that its 
place is supplied by a Syntax. With this in view, it is 
worth while to give several special lessons on the peculiar 
function and use of auxiliaries in English. And in do- 
ing this, you will choose first examples of the use of these 
words not as auxiliaries, but as principal and independent 
verbs. " Before Abraham was I am." Here the verb le 
is independent and means existence. Afterwards and in 
ordinary modern use, it becomes a mere copula. " He was 
going, I am a soldier." Again " I Tiave a book, I have 
finished the book." The first and independent meaning 
of the word " have " is seen to be that of possession, the 
subsequent meaning that of completion. You show that 
" will " simply implies volition in such a sentence as " If I 
will that he tarry till I come ; " but that in the sentence 
^' He ivill go," it implies futurity. You ask why in merely 
stating a fact about a future act, you say ^^ I sliall come ; " 
but " They will come ; " yet that if you desire to express 
the same thing with more positiveness you change the 
form and say " I ivill,'' and '^ They shall'' And having 
traced this usus ethicus by means of the analogous forms 



292 Lectures on Teaching. 

should and ivould, you come to the conclusion that though 
these two words have come in time to be auxiliaries^ some 
faint reminiscence of their early signification still clings 
to them^ and that even in their modern use^ we can dis- 
cern traces of the idea of volition in will and ivould, and of 
obligation in sliall and should. The same thing is seen 
on examination to be true of all the auxiliary verbs. They 
have in becoming mere substitutes for inflection parted 
with much of their original meaning, but in all cases some 
flavor of that original meaning remains. The result of 
these inquiries may then be tabulated in some such form 
as this : 

English Auxiliary Verbs. 



Primitive 
Be Beon 
Have Hablan 
Will Wyllan 
Would 


) Meaning. 
Existence 
Possession 

■ Volition 


Derived or Secondary Me 
Copula. 
Completed action, 

Futurity (1). 


Shall Scealan 
Should 


' !• Obligation 


Futurity (2). 


May Magan 
Can Cunnan 
Must Mot 
Do Do7i 


Ability, Power 
Knowledge 
Compulsion 
Action 


Permission. 

Ability. 

Obligation. 
* 



Word-building and analysis — the investigation of the 
Verbal parts of words and the separate signiflcations 

Analysis. ^^ Q^ch part — form a most useful exercise. 
You take the word Unselfishness and decompose it. Self 
is seen to be here used as a noun. This noun becomes an 



* Contributes by itself no additional meaning to the verb, but 
serves (1) to carry emphasis, as I do wish; (2) to furnish a place 
for a negative or other adverb, as I did not go; or (3) to help the 
construction of an interrogative sentence, as Did I forget ? 



The English Language, 



293 



adjective by the termination ish. The adjective thus 
formed is negatived by the prefix un, and this adjective 
Unselfish is converted into an abstract noun by the addi- 
tion of the syllable ness. At each of these steps it is well 
to ask for a number of other examples of similar con- 
struction^ to write them down, and to ask the pupils to 
make the generalization for themselves. Such a word as 
Indestructibility in like manner may be analyzed, and the 
value and force of each separate syllable shown. And after 
this has been done, the result of the collocation of a num- 
ber of examples, which will have been mainly supplied by 
the pupils, wall appear in some such form as this. It cer- 
tainly should not be presented at first in the form of a 
list to be learned from a text-book, but should grow as the 
facts are elicited in successive lessons. 



English. 

Nouns. («) From verbs Doer 

IjeSiTmng 

Knowledge 

(6) From adjec- ) 

.. ■ i" Goodness 
tives ) 



Latin. Greek. 

Sponso?' AcousUcs 

^uhtraction Catechism 

Exper^e;^ce Hypothesis 

Purify 





Trua 


Juongiiude 


' Cyclot(f 




(c) From other) 

nouns \ ^^Sdom 




Dmmeter 






" Iliad 




D\ickli7ig 


Heticyle 


Asterisk 


Verbs. 


(a) From nouns Embody 


Fabricate 


Metamor-phose 




(b) From adiec- ) 


Falsi/y 


Christiamze 




Enl&Tge 


Celebrate 






(c) From other 

verbs \ ^"*'<' 








Destroy 






Wander 


hihaXe 






behave 






Adjec- 


(a) From nouns ChUdish 


Arbitrary 


^wphonious 


tives. 


Frmtful 


Qtslcwus 


Cosmic 




Rainy 


'Royal 


AmpMbiovLS 




Weekly 


Giyil 





294 



Lectures on Teaching. 



English. 


Latin. 


Greek. 


(&) From verbs Read«&?<3 


Kwdiible 


/Symbolic 


Willw^ 


Illustrati-ue 




Belovec? 


Decent 
Ornate 




(c) From other adjectives 






Unixdij 


improper 


.atheistic 


Ruder 


Superior 




Black^■s^ 







Composition. 



Such a series of inductive lessons having been given, 
lists of illustrative examples prepared, and sentences 
framed to contain each of the less familiar words, the pu- 
pil will know something of the genesis both of words* and 
of thoughts, and will be able on looking at many words 
to tell at once to what class they belong, from what sort 
of words they are immediately formed, and from what 
language they are derived. I know no lesson which when 
well given awakens more interest and mental activity even 
among young children than this. 

It is well known that the part of English grammar 
which is usually considered most practical as 
an aid in correct speaking consists of the 
Eules of Syntax. But although it is useful to have at hand 
a compendium of such rules and to refer to them occa- 
sionally, experience shows that they have no value as 
guides. The true discipline in correct speech is to be found 
in the practice of composition, which should begin from 
the first. Short sentences should be prepared by the pupil 
to exemplify each new fact or distinction which you ex- 
plain, and by degrees the sentences may become more com- 
plex. 

In the choice of subjects for composition exercises, let 
them be those on which the scholars have something to 
say. Do not ask your scholars to write on mere abstract 
themes. " Virtus est bona res," '^ Time is money,'^ and 



The English Language, 295 

other arid generalities of that kind, have little interest 
for scholars, and they do not know what to say about 
them. Let the composition exercises always refer to some- 
thing of which a boy has the material at hand, an expedi- 
tion he has recently taken, a story you have just read to 
him, a letter detailing some recent experience or well- 
known fact. It is probable that the number of solecisms 
in speech or in the formation of sentences which you will 
find among your pupils is very small, especially if they are 
in the habit of living and speaking with educated people 
at home. The chief difficulties w^hich occur in actual com- 
position are apt to show themselves in connection with 
the use of the relatives, and connective words particularly 
in those sentences which are elliptical in form, and in 
which some part has to be supplied. • You will deal with 
this form of fault partly by requiring as a rule that sen- 
tences should be shorter than young people are apt to 
make them ; partly by requiring the lacunce in elliptical 
sentences to be filled up, and partly by taking an involved 
or muddled sentence now and then, and setting scholars 
to parse or analyze it. This indicates where the difficulty 
of the construction lies, and helps to show how the thought 
might by a rearrangement of words, or by the use of two 
sentences instead of one, be more concisely or more ele- 
gantly expressed. 

One essential object contemplated in the study of our 
own language is a knowledge of the meanings Meanings 
of its words. This, it is true, is not grammar, ^^ words. 
but it is closely connected with it. Definitions of words, 
however, must not be learned by heart, from dictionaries 
or lists, because the same word has not always the same 
meaning, and because the meaning is often determined by 
the context. Sentences, we have said, are to a child easier 



29^ Lectures on Teaching. 

than single words, and it is often better to require a para- 
phrase of a short sentence, than to demand exact 
synonyms, which though right in the particular case will 
he wrong for others. Not until after much practice in 
giving the substance of short sentences in other language, 
is it useful to require exact definitions of particular words. 
In fashioning lessons for Paraphrase, it will be well to 

adopt for yourselves and your pupils a few very 

simple rules : 

(1) Do not think that you have to find an equivalent 
for every word. But read the whole passage, turn it over 
in the mind ; keep in view its drift and general purpose, 
and then rewrite it, so as to convey the collective mean- 
ing of the passage, not a translation of its words. 

(2) Do not be afraid of using the same word, if it is 
clearly the best, and an equivalent cannot be found. 

(3) Be sure that the sentences are short and simple, and 
guard with special care against the vicious use of relatives, 
participles, and connective words, and particularly of any 
constructions which you could not easily parse. 

(4) Never use two words where one would suffice to- 
express your thought ; nor a hard word where an easy one 
would convey your meaning ; nor any word at all unless 
you are quite sure it has a meaning to convey. At the 
same time, in dealing with very concise writers it is not 
necessary to try to make the paraphrase as short a?s the 
original. 

(5) Do not translate all the metaphors, or all the 
poetry into prose. Slight change of figurative language 
is quite legitimate so long as the meaning is preserved. 

(6) Keep in mind the general style of the extract, and, 
if it be grave or playful, maintain its character as far as 
you can, and be careful that the result shall be a perfectly 



The English Language. 297 

readable piece of English, which would be intelligible to 
those who had no knowledge of the original. 

I will suppose that with these general rules in view you 
attempt to recast the following well-known 
passage from Bacon : Examples. 

Studies serve for deligh^ for ornament, and for ability. The 
chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament 
is in discourse; and for ability is in the judgment and disposition 
of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of 
particulars one by one, but the general counsels, and the plots and 
marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To 
spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much 
for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their 
rules is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are per- 
fected by experience. For natural abilities are like natural plants, 
that need pruning by study. And studies themselves do give forth 
directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by ex- 
perience. 

Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and 
wise men use them. For they teach not their own use; but that 
is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. — 
Bacon's Essays. 

You first read it aloud, and point out that here the 
word " studies '' is used for learning generally. You call 
attention to the special sense in which for his present pur- 
pose Bacon uses the words " ability/^ " discourse/^ and 
" crafty.^^ You show how closely he has packed his mean- 
ing into a few words. And perhaps you arrive after this 
at something of this sort : 

I. Learning is valuable in three ways — as a source of pleasure, 
as a means of adding grace and beauty to life, and as an instrument 
for the discharge of duty. The first of these advantages is chiefly 
enjoyed in solitude; the second is found in social intercourse, 
while its third use is that it helps us to order and arrange the 
business of life. For although men of natural acuteness can per- 



2gS Lectures on Teaching, 

form good work and form right judgments about its details, yet 
the power to view things comprehensively, to group them together, 
and to exercise a wise forethought in the arrangement of business 
is rarely possessed except by the well instructed man. 

It is a mark of indolence to give ourselves up wholly to the 
enjoyment of literature; it is proof of self-conceit to value our 
reading only as a means of display; while to determine all ques- 
tions by what books say is the sure •characteristic of a pedant. 
Learning supplements and improves natural gifts, but itself needs 
to be further improved by the experience of life; for our natural 
gifts are like trees which need discipline and culture, and learning 
itself is apt to mislead a student, unless its conclusions are cor- 
rected by actual experience. 

Learning is not unfrequently despised by the clever practical 
man; it is regarded with childish wonder by the foolish; but it is 
only truly appreciated by the wise. For learning does not teach 
its possessor how to employ it; the power to do this aright is a 
higher attainment than any scholarship, and can only come by 
thinking and observing. 

Or you choose for an analysis of its meaning part of the 
opening passage of Paradise Lost. 

And chiefly Thou, Q Spirit, that dost prefer 

Before all temples the upright heart and pure, 

Instruct me, for Thou knowest: Thou from the first 

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread, 

Dove-like, sat'st brooding o'er the vast abyss. 

And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark 

Illumine; what is low raise and support, 

Tbat to the height of this great argument 

I may assert Eternal Providence, 

And justify the ways of God to men. Milton. 

It is not well to begin at once and try to paraphrase line 
by line. But the character of the invocations with which 
the Iliad and the ^neid commence may be pointd out ; 
then Milton's classicalism, dominated as it was in this 
case by devout Christian feeling ; then the passage in 



The English Language. 299 

Genesis which was evidently in his mind ; finally the 
mingling of humility in the presence of so vast an under- 
taking, with an inward consciousness of power to achieve 
it. Afterwards the meaning of the whole passage admits 
of being rendered on this wise ; 

IT. But most of all do I invoke Tliine aid and teaching: Thou 
Holy Spirit, whose choicest dwelling place is the guileless and 
reverent human heart. Thou wast present at the beginning and 
like a dove with outstretch'd pinions didst hover over the void and 
formless infinite, and impregnate it with life. 

In so far as I am ignorant, enlighten me: when my thoughts are 
mean or poor, elevate and sustain them; that so I may be en- 
abled to utter words not unworthy of my lofty theme, to speak 
rightly of the Divine Government and to vindicate the dealings 
of God with mankind. 

In choosing passages for this purpose, it is well to have 
regard as much to the ease, the dignity, and the charm of 
the language as to the instruction which it may convey. 
And exercises of this kind, though more often in writing, 
may often with advantage be oral, and should almost al- 
ways be made the subject of conversation and questioning 
before they are attempted. 

With a view to correct the tendency to wordiness, which 
some forms of paraphrase are apt to generate, 
it is well to intersperse them with a few exer- 
cises on what is called in the public offices precis-writing ; 
the condensation into a sentence or two of the main drift 
and purpose of a letter, an essay, or a formal document. 
The effort of mind required here in seizing upon the salient 
point among a number of particulars, of seeing the dif- 
ference between the most relevant and the least relevant 
parts of a statement, and of stripping off all the dressing 
and circumlocution from the one chief purpose of a writer, 
is not only of special value in the after conduct of official 



3od Lectures on Teaching. 

business, but it is in itself of great value in promoting dis- 
cernment and clearness of thought. 

Considering how important a part is played by verse- 
making in the learning of Greek and Latin, 
Versification. ^|. ^^ remarkable that the composition of Eng- 
lish verse is so seldom set as a school exercise. It must 
be owned that the Sapphics and Hexameters produced by 
school-boys do little to call out invention and literary taste. 
They are good exercises in grammar and prosody, and 
they guard the pupil against the one deadly sin of mak- 
ing false quantities ; — a sin, however, of which in the case 
of two languages which are seldom or never to be spoken, 
— it is very easy to exaggerate the seriousness. The ef- 
fort is apt to prove a very mechanical one, and to be some- 
what sterile in intellectual result ; because the pupil is 
much more concerned with the length and shortness of 
the syllables, than with their meaning. Similar failure 
would result from exercises in English versification, if the 
making of rhymes, or the use of difficult metres were re- 
quired. But when the pupil is familiar with some good 
passages from Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, and 
has caught the ring and movement of the English heroic 
measure, it is worth while to draw attention to the con- 
ditions which render that measure musical and effective, 
to the law of recurrent accents, and to the necessity of 
making the structure of the thought, and the logical ar- 
rangement of the sentences fit in with the structure of the 
verse. Then it is a good exercise to give a subject, or a suit- 
able extract from a book, and to require it to be repro- 
duced in blank verse. This will be found to encourage 
the choice of a diction, elevated a little above that of or- 
dinary life ; to give practice in conciseness, and in the 
better arrangement of the thoughts ; and to tune the ear 



The English Language. 301 

to a truer perception not only of the melody of verse, 
but also of that of rhythmical prose. 

And here it seems fitting to make some reference to Eng- 
lish Literature as a branch of school instruc- 
tion. This is a comparatively new ingredient of English 
introduced of late years into the school course, 
and largely encouraged, and almost enforced by the in- 
fluence of the Local and other University Examinations. 
A play of Shakespeare, or a part of Paradise Lost is taken 
as a theme, and read critically. In order to do this well 
several things are necessary : (1) To explain and trace to 
their origin all difficult and archaic words, (2) To hunt 
out all the historical and other allusions, (3) To elucidate 
the meaning and purpose of the book as a whole, (4) To 
analyze, paraphrase, and learn by heart, choice and char- 
acteristic passages, (5) To know something of the circum- 
stances in which it was written, and the relation in which 
it stands, not only to the author^s other writings, but to 
the literature of the period, and (6) To examine its style, 
and discover its merits or peculiarities as a work of literary 
art. 

There can be no doubt that the reading of any one of 
the masterpieces of our literature in this way 
is a very valuable and awakening exercise, and study the 
that rightly conducted it does much both to pieces of 
inform the pupil, and also to cultivate literary 
taste and a love of reading. But I think it essential if 
you would do this effectually, that you should not treat 
the book you are dealing with merely as something which 
has to be analyzed, commented on, and picked to pieces ; 
but also as a work of genius which has to be studied as a 
whole, and which the pupil must learn to appreciate as 
a whole. Before beginning to read the selected book piece- 



302 Lectures on Teaching, 

meal, the time of one lesson may well be clevoted to a gen- 
eral and nncritical reading of the whole through, simply 
with a view to show the scholar what it is about, and to 
kindle some interest in it for itself, and not as a lesson. 
A very skilful teacher of this subject complained to me 
that this was too often neglected, that pupils were in- 
vited to give their whole attention to the philological, his- 
torical, and antiquarian details which were supposed to be 
useful in examinations, and that in this way all the en- 
joyment of the flavor and style of a book, as a great work 
of art, became impossible. 

Indeed the complaint is not unfrequently made, that 
the habit of treating Macbeth or Comus as a lesson, tak- 
ing it to pieces and putting them together again like a 
puzzle, is rather lowering and vulgarizing in its effect, 
and calculated to destroy the freshness and interest with 
which the reader enjoys the book for its own sake. Now, 
this result is no doubt possible, but if it arises, I am sure 
it comes from bad and unskilful teaching. 

It is surely a little inconsistent on the part of scholars, 
who profess to have formed their own literary taste by the 
close study of the Greek and Eoman classics, and who do 
not admit that all the school exercises, the grammar, and 
the versification, have deadened their admiration for the 
beauties of Virgil and Homer, to say as they sometimes 
do that the study in an analogous way of an English poet 
tends to deprave the literary taste, and to give disagreeable 
associations with our own classics. It would be truer to 
say. An Englishman can get discipline in taste and ex- 
pression from reading Homer critically, although the lan- 
guage is ancient and unfamiliar. He ought also to get a 
like advantage from reading Shakespeare or Burke, though 



The English Language, 303 

the language in which they wrote is his own. It is be- 
cause English is our vernacular that a fuller knowledge 
of Shakespeare than of Homer is possible to an English- 
man ; and we should therefore set ourselves to attain it. 

Listen here to a passage from one of Dr. Arnold's let- 
ters. 

"My delight in going over Homer and Virgil with the boys 
makes me think what a treat it must be to teach Shakespeare to 
a good class of young Greeks in regenerate Athens, to dwell upon 
him line by line, and word by word, in the way that nothing but 
a transhition lesson ever will enable one to do, and so to get all his 
pictures and thoughts leisurely into one's mind, till I verily think 
one would after a time almost give out light in the dark, after hav- 
ing been steeped as it were in such an atmosphere of brilliance. 
And how could this ever be done without having the power of 
construing, as the proper medium through which alone all the 
beauty can be transmitted ? because else we travel too fast and 
more than half of it escapes us." 

There is here, as you see, a recognition of the fact that 
the slow process of construing, translating, and analyzing 
line by line, is, in the case of an author whose works are 
in a foreign language, very helpful to true literary in- 
sight and enjoyment. No doubt classic authors may be 
taught in so dull and soulless a way that pupils attach 
very unpleasant associations to the great names of an- 
tiquity, and their interest in them is permanently 
deadened. But no one who has ever had the good for- 
tune to read a play of ^schylus or a book of the ^neid 
with a thoroughly sympathetic teacher can doubt that 
Arnold is rights and that the literary and moral beauties 
of the writer, his images and pictures, may be thoroughly 
appreciated in the process of translation and analysis. 



304 Lectures on Teaching. 

And if this be so with ancient writers, why not with 
our own ? The faculty of criticism does not 
anaiysi destroy the power of enjoyment in tlie case 

Sve^of liS^-" ^^ ^^ oratorio or a great painting. On the 
mentf^^**^" contrary, it greatly heightens it. It is the in- 
structed man, whose perceptions have been 
trained to discern the difference between what is good and 
what is bad, and to know why one thing is good and 
another bad, who gets the most pleasure from the con- 
templation of a work of art.^ And when we are taught 
to dwell on the exquisite fitness with which a great author 
has chosen his epithets, the appropriateness of his imagery, 
or the rhythm and balance of his sentences, all this is clear 
gain to us, and I do not see why any of that literary sen- 
sibility which comes from the sympathetic reading of a 
good book merely for our own delight should be sacrificed 
to it. Of course we must not be challenging admiration, 
or leading the pupil to express a pleasure which he does 
not feel. Still less must we fall into the ignoble habit 
of reading such a book with a view to examination only. 
It is, however, a great mistake to suppose that intelli' 
gence and perception are of less value in an examination 
than a few technical facts and dates. Nothing is more 
welcome to a good examiner than the discovery of any 

^ " It is not the eye that sees the beauties of the heaven, nor the 
ear that hears the sweetness of music, or the glad tidings of a 
prosperous accident, but the soul that perceives all the relishes 
of sensual and intellectual perceptions; and the more noble and 
excellent the soul is, the greater and more savory are its percep- 
tions. And if a child beholds the rich ermine, or the diamonds of a 
starry night, or the order of the world, or hears the discourses of 
an apostle; because he makes no reflex acts upon himself, and 
sees not that he sees, he can have but the pleasure of a fool or the 
deliciousness of a mule." — Jeremy Taylor. 



The English Language. 305 

proof of originality or critical power, of strong opinion 
or honest admiration, provided it goes wih thorough 
knowledge of the substance of the book which is learned. 
The one thing which maddens an examiner is the mere 
routine of the text-books, the conventional critical judg- 
ments of the lecture-room mechanically reproduced, the 
use of second-hand estimates of books which the candi- 
date has evidently never read. And so I would urge on 
you, when you have before you the two objects, first of 
enabling your pupil to understand and intelligently to 
admire an English classic ; and then of enabling him also 
to get some credit for his knowledge at an examination : 
keep the larger and the nobler aim before you ; disregard 
the second ; and be sure nevertheless that this is the best 
way of attaining the second. There is not and ought not 
to be any real inconsistency between the two purposes. 

With young students, the thorough and searching in- 
vestigation of one or two fruitful books is of xhe history 
more value than lessons in what is called the of literature. 
history of literature. Of course it is desirable that the 
scholar should know the names of the greatest writers, 
when they lived, and what they wrote. But there is a 
certain unreality — almost dishonesty — in the mere appro- 
priation of other men's opinions about books before we 
have read them. After all, the best study of literature 
is to be found in literature itself, and not in what com- 
pilers of manuals haA^e said about it. We are here es- 
pecially bound to keep clear of all confusion between 
means and ends. What is the end which we propose to 
ourselves in all lessons on literature ? It is to produce a 
permanent appetite for reading, a power of discriminating 
what is good from what is bad, and a conscious preference 
for it. ''What a heaven," says Bishop Hall, "lives a 



3o6 Lectures on Teaching, 

scholar in, that at once and in one close room can daily 

converse with all the glorious writers and fathers, and 

single them out at pleasure ! To find wit in poetry, in 

philosophy profoundness, in mathematics acuteness, in 

history wonder of events, in oratory sweet eloquence, in 

divinity supernatural delight and holy devotion, as so 

many rich metals in their proper mines, whom would 

it not ravish with delight ? " 

Now of course it would be unreasonable to expect you 

^ to convey to youns^ learners anythinsr like this 

True purpose j j & v' & 

of lessons in scholarly enthusiasm. But if your teaching 
literature. of literature is good and sound, it ought to 
convey at least the germ of such enthusiasm into a good 
proportion of the minds with which you deal. And this 
is the true test of your success in this department. For 
if your scholars do not acquire a positive love for read- 
ing, if they do not ask to be allowed to read the whole 
book or poem of which the extract you take as a lesson 
forms a part ; if you do not find them voluntarily hunt- 
ing in the library for the other works of some author whom 
you have tried to make them admire ; if they do not feel 
a heightened admiration for what is noblest and iruest in 
literature, and an increasing distaste for what is poor and 
flimsy and sensational, then be sure that there must be 
something incurably wrong in your method of teaching, 
and that all your apparatus of grammar, paraphrase, and 
logical and grammatical analysis, will have failed to fulfil 
its purpose. 



Arithmetic as an Art. ^o'j 



X. AKITHMETIC AS AN ART. 

Befoee asking how we should teach Arithmetic it may 
be well to ask for a moment why we should 
teach it at all. There are two conceivable ob- metfc should 
jects in teaching any subject. (1) Because the ^ *^^ 
thing taught is necessary^ or useful^ and may be turned 
to practical account^ or (2) Because the incidental effect 
of teaching it is to bring into play and exercise certain 
powers and capabilities^ and so to serve a real educational 
purpose. As we have seen^ some things we teach are 
justifiable on the one, and some on the other of these 
grounds. And it behoves us all, whatever be the subject 
we teach, to make sure which of these two purposes we 
are aiming at. For if lessons on any subject are not val- 
uable, either for their, obvious practical uses or for their 
disciplinal effect on the general power and capacity of the 
pupil, there is no justification for teaching that subject 
at all. 

But of Arithmetic we may safely say at the outset, that 
if rightly taught, it is well calculated to fulfil 
both purposes. Its rules become of real ser- Art and a 
vice in helping us to solve the problems of 
daily life ; and its laws and principles, if rightly investi- 
gated, serve to set particular mental faculties in operation, 
and so to further the improvement and development of the 
learner. It is conspicuously one of those subjects of 
school instruction the purpose of Avhich extends beyond 



3© 8 Lectures on Teaching. 

itself. Its ideas and processes can be effectively applied 
to other regions of knowledge. Yon cannot measure its 
intellectual usefulness by looking only at its immediate 
aims. It is^ in fact, both an Art and a Science : — an Art 
because it contemplates the doing of actual work, the at- 
tainment of definite and useful results ; a Science because 
it investigates principles, because he who unearths the 
truths which underlie the rules of Arithmetic is being ex- 
ercised, not merely in the attainment of a particular kind 
of truth about numbers, but in the processes by which, 
truth of many other kinds is to be investigated and at- 
tained. 

Now it is unnecessary to remind you that of these two 
aspects or uses of Arithmetic, the former is 
warded as an that which we usually associate with the name, 
mere y. -j-^ .^ ^^^ reasoning about numbers, but using 
figures for the purpose of calculation and working out 
sums, that we generally understand by the study of Arith- 
metic in schools. A text-book of Arithmetic is often a 
book of exercises and problems, and nothing more. We all 
remember Goldsmith's schoolmaster, of whom it was said 
that 

" Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And even the story ran that he could gauge." 

Such a pedagogue, who could do sums of surprising length 
and intricacy, and set them down in beautiful figures in a 
book duly garnished with flourishes, passed then for the 
good arithmetician. The scholar who could work out the 
largest number of problems by the shortest and most dex- 
terous methods was the winner of all the prizes, and so 
long as he produced right answers, the extent to which he 
had understood the processes he employed was a matter of 
small concern. 



Arithmetic as an Art. 309 

No doubt this notion of the place Arithmetic should 
hold in school-work^ and of the object to be attained in 
teaching it, is still very prevalent. But it was not always 
so. Arithmetic, as taught in the schools of Athens or 
Alexandria : to the contemporaries of Socrates and Al- 
cibiades ; or later, when in the Middle Ages it shared with 
logic, geometry, grammar and rhetoric and music the dis- 
tinction of forming one of the staple subjects of a liberal 
education, was taught in its principles, as a logical disci- 
pline ; as something to be understood rather than as a 
series of devices for working out problems. It was, how- 
ever, often mixed up with some wholly unsound and in- 
denfensible theories about the mystic properties of cer- 
tain numbers ; and numerical relations were supposed to 
furnish the key to certain moral and spiritual questions, 
with which we now think they have nothing to do. 

It is interesting to turn to the oldest treatise in Arith- 
metic in our language and to see the spirit in which the 
subject was treated. 

In Eobert Eecorde's Arithmetic'k., or the Grounde of 
Artes, dedicated to Edward VI., we have the 
first successful attempt to popularize the study Recorde's_ 
of the '^ Algorithmic science," as it was then 
called, in England. It is written in the form of a dia- 
logue, for, as the author quaintly says in his Preface, 
'' I judge that to be the easiest way of instruction, when the 
scholar may aske any doubts orderly, and the master may 
answer to his question plainly.'' Accordingly, the book 
opens thus : 

Scholar, "Sir, such is your authority in mine estimation, that 
I am content to consent to your saying, and to receive it as truth, 
though I see none other reason that doth lead me thereunto: 
whereas else in mine owne conceite it appeareth but vaine to 



3IO Lectures on Teaching. 

bestowe anie time privately on that which every ehilde may and 
doth learne at all times and hours. 

Master. Lo, this is the fashion and chance of all them that seeke 
to defend their blind ignorance, that when they think they have 
made strong reason for themselves, then have they proved quite 
the contrary." 

He goes on to vindicate his favorite study, and to show 
its importance ; and the docile pupil, whose function it 
is throughout the work to exhibit constant wonder and 
delight at the revelation of each new rule, soon expresses 
interest in the subject, and is conducted through the sci- 
ence in a spirit and temper which cannot be too much ad- 
mired, if we may take the following fragment as an ex- 
ample : 

Scholar. " Truly, Sir, these excellent conclusions do wonderfully 
make me more and more in love with the art. 

Master. It is an art, that the further you travell the more you 
thirst to goe on forward. Such a fountaine, that the more you 
draw the more it springes ; and to speake absolutely in a word 
(excepting the study of divinity which is the salvation of our 
souls), there is no study in the world comparable to this, for de- 
light in wonderfull and godly exercise; for the skill hereof is well 
known immediately to have floAved from the wisdom of God into 
the hearts of man, whom he hath created the chiefe image and 
instrument of his praise and glorie. 

8. The desire of knowledge doth greatly ineourage me to be 
studious herein, and therefore I pray you cease not to instruct 
me further in the use thereof. 

M. With a good will, and now therefore for the further use of 
these two latter (multiplication and division) the seat of reduc- 
tion." 



In this way master and pupil proceeded amicably to- 
gether through integral and fractional Arithmetic, only 



Arithmetic as an Art, 31 1 

pausing now and then to congratulate one another, and 
to offer devout thanksgivings to God for the beauty of 
the science, and for its marvellous uses. Eecorde subse- 
quently published an advanced treatise, entitled the 
"Whetstone of Witte, containing the extraction of roots, 
the Cossike practice, with the rule of equations, and the 
woorks of surd numbers." This book contains an ad- 
mirable summary for the period, of the chief rules for the 
manipulation of algebraic .quantities ; but throughout 
both books it is the intellectual exercise, not the useful 
application, which seems to the author to be of chief in- 
terest and importance. 

It must be owned, however, that if early writers thought 
little of the practical usefulness of the applications of 
Arithmetic our immediate ancestors and many of our con- 
temporaries have thought of these practical applications 
almost exclusively. Since Eecorde's time the majority of 
authors — from Cocker, and Wingate, and Vyse, and Dil- 
worth, to Walkinghame and Colenso — have treated Arith- 
metic from the utilitarian point of view exclusively. 
Their books give few or no demonstrations of the theory 
of numbers, but are filled with what are called commercial 
rules. There are tare and tret, alligation, foreign ex- 
changes, partnership with time, partnership without time 
(whatever that may mean), bills of parcels, the chain rule, 
a new method 'of finding the cubic contents of a cask, and 
so forth. The goal to be reached in the teaching of arith- 
metic is very clearly defined, and all the progress towards 
it is regulated accordingly. The successful arithmetician 
is to be a good computer, a skilful tradesman, a land sur- 
veyor, or an excise-man ; and the whole object of the art 
is to fit him to perform one or other of these important 
functions. 



312 Lectures on Teaching. 

We are so accustomed to hear Arithmetic spoken of as 

„^ , ^ one of the three fundamental ine^redients in 
The place of ° 

Arithmetic all schemes of instruction, that it seems like 

in a School ^ 

course. inquiring too curiously to ask why this should 

be. Eeading, Writing, and Arithmetic — these three are 
assumed to be of co-ordinate rank. Are they indeed co- 
ordinate, and if so, on what ground ? 

In this modern " trivium " the art of Eeading is put 
first. Well, there is no doubt as to its right 
poses^to'he ^^ ^^® foremost place. For reading is the in- 
served hy it. gtrument of all our acquisitions. It is indis- 
pensable. There is not an hour in our lives in which it 
does not make a great difference to us whether we can read 
or not. And the art of Writing, too ; that is the instru- 
ment of all communication, and it becomes, in one form 
or other, useful to us every day. But Counting — doing 
sums, — how often in life does this accomplishment come 
into exercise ? Beyond the simplest additions and the 
power to check the items of a bill, the arithmetical knowl- 
edge required of any well-informed person in private life 
is very limited. For all practical purposes, whatever I 
may have learned at school of fractions, or proportion, or 
decimals, is, unless I happen to be in business, far less 
frequently available to me in life than a knowledge, say, 
of the history of my own country, or of the elementary 
truths of physics. The truth is, that regarded as practical 
arts, reading, writing, and arithmetic have no right to be 
classed together as co-ordinate elements of education ; for 
the last of these is considerably less useful to the average 
man or w"oman not only than the other two, but than 
many others which might be named. But reading, 
writing, and such mathematical or logical exercise as may 
be gained in connection with the manipulation of num- 



Arithmetic as an Art, • 313 

bers, liave a right to constitute the primary elements of 
instruction. And I believe that arithmetic^ if it deserves 
the high place that it conventionally holds in our educa- 
tional system, deserves it mainly on the ground that it is to 
be treated as a logical exercise. It is the only branch of 
mathematics which has found its way into primary and 
early education ; other departments of pure science be- 
ing reserved for what is called higher or university in- 
struction. But all the arguments in favor of teaching 
algebra and trigonometry to r d ance students, ap^ ly equally 
to the teaching of the principles or theory of arithmetic 
to school-boys. It is calculated to do for them exactly 
the same kind of service, to educate one side of their minds, 
to bring into play one set of faculties which cannot be so 
severely or properly exercised in any other department of 
learning. In short, relatively to the needs of a beginner. 
Arithmetic, as a science, is just as valuable — it is certainly 
quite as intelligible — as the higher mathematics to a uni- 
versity student. 

It is probably because the purely utilitarian or prac- 
tical view of school Arithmetic has so gen- 
erally prevailed that it has never been a fa- has«Ssime 
vorite study in girls' schools. Mistresses, as IfrPsa^toa 
a rule, do not take a strong interest in it, or tfon?^^^^^" 
seek to kindle their pupils' enthusiasm in it. 
Girls at school are, if not actually encouraged to dislike 
arithmetic, apt to take for granted that it is rather an 
unfeminine pursuit, that it is certainly unnecessary, and 
probably vulgar. And, no doubt, if the conventional no- 
tion about the purpose of Arithmetic is well founded, they 
are right. If ciphering means a collection of artifices for 
doing sums ; if the great object of learning the art is to 
be fitted for the counting-house or the shop, then the in- 



314 . Lee rur^s' an Teaching. 

stinct which makes governesses and their pupils shrink 
from Arithmetic is a true one. But if Arithmetic is a 
study capable of yielding intellectual fruit, if it helps to 
quicken and concentrate the attention, to bring under con- 
trol the reasoning faculty, to show by what method we can 
proceed from the known to the unknown, to enable us to 
perceive the nature of a fallacy, and to discriminate the 
two sides of a fine line by which the true is often separated 
from the false ; if, in short, the study of Arithmetic is 
mainly helpful in showing what truth is, and by what 
methods it is attained, then surely it bears just as close a 
relation to the needs of a woman's life as to those of a 
man. For she, too, has intellectual problems to solve, 
books to read, and opinions to fo^m ; and she will do all 
this to good purpose in just the proportion which she 
brings to her work a trained and disciplined understand- 
ing, accustomed to analyze the grounds of belief, and to 
proceed by slow and careful steps from premises to in- 
ference. 

So much will suffice for the present as to the greater 

purposes to be served in the teaching^ of Arith- 
The practi- 

caisideof metic. But the lesser purpose is not insisjnif- 
Arithmetic. . ^ n 

leant, and must not be overlooked. It is no 

slight thing to be a good computer, and to know how to 
apply arithmetical rules deftly and accurately to the man- 
agement of an income, to the conduct of business, to sta- 
tistics, to averages, to scientific and political data, and to 
the manifold problems which life presents. And even though 
the higher aims of Arithmetic are altogether overlooked, 
it cannot be said that time is wasted in achieving the lower 
aim. So much of arithmetical knowledge as is fairly tested 
by setting sums to be worked, and as is required in order 
to work them promptly and accurately, is well worth at- 
taining. Its relative importance to genuine mathematical 



Arithmetic as an Art, 315 

training may be, and often has been, exaggerated, but of 
its absolute importance there can be little question. 

Thus then the two distinct uses of Arithmetic, (1) Its 
direct or practical use as an instrument for the solution 
of problems, and (2) Its indirect or scientific use as a 
means of calling out the reasoning faculty, require to be 
separately apprehended, and I am intending to ask you 
to-day to look at the first, and in my next lecture at the 
second, and to inquire how each of the two objects thus 
to be kept in view can be best fulfilled. Of course two 
objects may be logically separable, and for purposes of dis- 
cussion here may be treated apart, while as a matter of 
fact they are pursued together. In attaining either ob- 
ject you cannot help doing something towards the attain- 
ment of the other. For you cannot teach practical arith- 
metic, even by mere rule of thumb, without giving some 
useful intellectual discipline ; and you cannot make the 
theory and laws of Arithmetic clear to a boy's understand- 
ing without also giving him some serviceable rules for prac- 
tical use. Still we may with advantage treat the two pur- 
poses of Arithmetic separately, and at present ask our- 
selves only how to teach Arithmetic as an Ar^. 

A really good computer is characterized by three quali- 
ties — promptitude, perfect accuracy, and that 
skill or flexibility of mind which enables him Computation. 
at once to seize upon the real meaning of a question, and 
to apply the best method to its solution. How are these 
qualities best to be attained ? 

Now the first thing necessary to be borne in mind is the 
familiar truth, that a child's earliest notions of Early exer- 
numbers are concrete, not abstract. He knows cretenot" 
what three roses or three chairs mean before 
he can make abstraction of the number 3 as a separate 
entity. Hence it will be seen that the earliest exercises 



31 6 Lectures on Teaching, 

in counting should take the form of counting actual ob- 
jects. For this purpose the ball-frame or abacus is gen- 
erally employed, and with great advantage, ^q should 
count also the objects in the room, the panes of glass in 
the window, a handful of pebbles, the j)ictures on the wall, 
and the number of scholars in the class. It must not be 
set down as a fault if at first he counts with his fingers. 
Let him do so by all means if he likes. The faculty of 
abstracting numbers, and of learning to do without visible 
and tangible illustrations, comes more slowly to some chil- 
dren than others. So long as they get the answer right, 
let them have what help they want till this power comes. 
It is sure to come ere long. At first, too, the little ques- 
tions and problems which are given to children may fitly 
refer to marbles or apples, or to things which are familiar 
to them. But the mistake made by many teachers is to 
continue using these artifices too long ; to go on showing 
an abacus, or talking about nuts and oranges after the chil- 
dren have fully grasped the meaning of 6 -[-5 in the ab- 
stract, and are well able to do without visible help. It is 
a sure test of a good teacher that he knows when and how 
far to employ such artifices, and when to dispense with 
them. The moment that concrete illustrations have served 
their purpose, they should be discarded. 

Eemember also that Arithmetic is one of the lessons in 
which discipline is more important than in any 
discipline other. The amount of order and drill which 
may suffice for a good lesson in reading or 
geography will not suffice for arithmetic. Undetected 
prompting and copying are easier in this subject than in 
any other, and they are more fatal to real progress. It is 
important that in computing a scholar should learn to rely 
on the accuracy of his own work. If he has any access to 
the answer, and works consciously towards it ; if he can 



Arithmetic as an Art, 317 

get a whispered word or a surreptitious figure to guide 
liim^ the work is not his own, and ha is learning little or 
nothing. It is, therefore, essential that your discipline 
should be such, that copying or friendly suggestion dur- 
ing the working of a sum shall be impossible. It is idle, 
in this connection, to talk of honor. The sense that it 
is dishonorable to avail one's self of any such chance help 
as comes in one's way in solving a problem is, after all, only 
a late product of moral training. You do not presuppose 
its existence in grown men at the universities, who are un- 
dergoing examinations for degrees, or even for Holy Or- 
ders. You have no right to assume its presence in the 
minds of little children. They will at first copy from one 
another without the smallest consciousness that there is 
any harm in it. After all there is nothing immoral in 
copying until we have shown it to be so. It is inconven- 
ient to us, of course, and it happens to be inconsistent with 
genuine progress in Arithmetic, and it is for these reasons 
that it becomes necessary to stop it. The truth is that if 
you want to train children in the habit of doing their own 
work well, and depending on its accuracy, you must do 
habitually that which is done at all public examinations — 
make copying impossible. And this may be done by di- 
vers expedients, e.g. by giving different exercises to scholars 
as they sit alternately, so that no two who are together 
shall have the same sum, or by placing them in proper at- 
titudes, and at needful distances, and under vigilant su- 
pervision. 

Again I suggest that a good many sums should be given 
out in words, not in figures. Kemember that Exercises 
the actual questions of life are not presented g^o^d^* 
to us in the shape of sums, but in another form ^^^ fi^tires. 
which we have to translate into sums, and that this busi- 



3i8 Lectures on Teaching. 

ness of translating the question out of the ordinary form 
into the form adopted in the arithmetic books is often 
harder than the working of the snm itself ; e.g., take 3018 
from 10,000. In an ill-taught school a child is puzzled by 
this ; he first asks what rule it is in. He next asks how 
to set it down. Both of these are questions which he 
ought to answer for himself. 

So long as a pupil finds any difficulty whatever in rec- 
ognizing an exercise in a given rule, under any guise, how- 
ever unfamiliar, be sure he does not understand that rule, 
and ought not to quit it for a higher. 

It is a very useful aid to this sort of versatility or readi- 
ness, not only to practise yourselves as teachers in the 
manufacture of new exercises, but also to encourage your 
pupils to invent new questions on each rule before you pass 
from it to the next. You will find a pupil's grasp of the 
real meaning and relations of an arithmetical rule much 
strengthened by the habit of framing new questions. 
Moreover, you will find it a very popular and interesting 
exercise, which will kindle a good deal of spirit and ani- 
mation in your class. 

Never permit any reference to be made to the answer 
while the work is in progress. It would be a 
beki^t^otit good thing if the printed answers tO' arith- 
^ ^^^ ** metical questions could be concealed from pu- 

pils altogether. But I fear this is impossible. At any rate, 
teachers should be on their guard against the tendency of 
children before they get to the end of the sum to glance 
furtively at the answer, and to work towards it. Perhaps 
if the right answer is evidently not coming the pupil al- 
ters a figure, or introduces a new multiplier in order to 
bring it right. But a sum so wrought is a very unsatisfac- 
tory and delusive performance. 



Arithmetic as an Art, 319 

It is well at first rather to give a good number of short 
exercises irregularly formed^ than to use 
those large symmetrical masses of figures, sho?texer- 
which the school-books are apt to give us, and aSe^Klew 
which are so much more convenient to the °^^°^®^- 
teacher, inasmuch as they take a good deal of time, and 
leave him a little more breathing space. A large square 
addition sum, in which all the lines are of the same length, 
and all extend to hundreds of millions, is far less likely 
to be useful than '^ Add seventeen to a hundred and twenty, 
that to three thousand and ninety-six, that to twenty-seven, 
and that to five/' Many children in fact who can do the 
first will be unable to do the second. Now and then, how- 
ever, it is a good thing to give a very long exercise, to test 
sustained attention and continuity of thought, and to in- 
sure accuracy. 

It is good also to take care that before proceeding to 
any new rule, you give a few exercises, which Recapituia- 
call out not alone the previous rule', but all the *^*'^- 
preceding rules. There is no true progress if any one of 
the elementary rules is allowed to drop out of sight. 

1 am often struck with the want of skill shown in mak- 
ing sure at each step that all previous steps are understood. 
This arises no doubt from the way in which exercises 
are arranged in books, grouped under the heads of the 
various rules. A child gets a rule, works a number of sums 
all alike, and then leaves to go on to another. Whereas 
exercises ought to be so graduated and sums so carefully 
framed as to bring into play all that has previously been 
learned, and to fix and fasten the memory of former rules. 
There is hardly any one text-book which I know that does 
this sufficiently. You should be supplied always there- 
fore with a number of miscellaneous exercises, which you 



320 Lectures on Teaching, . 

give the scholars from a book or manuscript of your own, 

and which they do not know to be illustrative of any 

special rule. 

Making out a fair copy of a sum in a book, garnished 

with ruled red ink lines and flourishes, is a 

sumsiS^^^ favorite employment in some schools, and con- 

ofmuch sumes a good deal of time. It has its utility, 

value. p • • X n 

01 course, as an exercise m neatness and ar- 
rangement, and in the mere writing of figures. More- 
over, it is liked by some teachers because it pleases par- 
ents, and is the only visible evidence of arithmetical prog- 
ress which can be appreciated at home. Yet as a device 
for increasing or strengthening a child^s arithmetical 
knowledge it is very useless. I venture to warn you, there- 
fore, against the inordinate use of what are called '^ cipher- 
ing books ; ^' believing, as I do, that in just the proportion 
in which you teach Arithmetic intelligently, you will learn 
to rely less on such mechanical devices. 

It will be well for us to consider, too, what use it is 

which a pupil makes of a slate or a paper when 

mental he is working a sum. The object of all rules 

Arithmetic. • <? x i i i i 

IS, 01 course, to snow how a long or complex 

problem, which cannot be worked by a cingle effort of the 
mind, may be resolved into a number of separate problems 
each simple enough to be so wrought. As each separate re- 
sult in multiplication, division, or addition is thus at- 
tained, we set it down as a help to the memory, and are 
thus at liberty to go on to the next. Now it is evident 
that the worth and accuracy of the general result depend 
upon the correctness with which we work out each of these 
single items. It is a good plan, therefore, to give a pupil 
some oral practice in the manipulation of single numbers, 
before setting him down to work a sum. 



Arithmetic as an Art, 321 

This Oral or Mental Arithmetic has long been a favorite 
exercise in elementary schools^ but it has not been very 
generally adopted in schools of a higher class. -One reason 
for this is to be found in the very restricted and technical 
use made of the exercise. In manuals of Mental Arithme- 
tic, advantage is taken of little accidental facilities or re- 
semblances afforded by particular numbers, and rules are 
founded upon them : e.g., 

( 1 ) To find the price of a dozen articles ; call the pence shillings, 
and call every odd farthing three pence. 

(2) To find the price of an ounce, when the price of 1 lb. is 
known; call the shillings farthings and multiply by three. 

(3) To find the price of a score, call the shillings pounds. 

(4) To find the interest on a sum of money at 5 per cent., for 
a year; call the pounds shillings, and for every additional month 
call the pound a penny. 

(5) To square a number; add the lower unit to the upper, mul- 
tiply by the tens, and add the square of the unit. 

Each of these rules happens to offer special facilities in 
computation. But the occasions on which a 
question actually occurs in one of these forms "^^^^^®^- 
are rare ; and the student who has his memory filled with 
these rules is not helped, but rather hindered by them 
when, for example, he wants to know what fourteen arti- 
cles will cost, or what is the interest at 3 per cent., or how 
to multiply 75 by 23. All such rules are apt to seem more 
useful than they are, and when children, who have learned 
the knack of solving a few such problems are publicly 
questioned by those who are in the secret, the result is 
often deceptive. I attended an exhibition or oral exami- 
nation of a middle school of some pretensions a short time 
ago ; and the teacher of Arithmetic undertook to put the 
scholars through a little testing drill. All his questions 



32 2 Lectures on Teaching. 

fell within the narrow limits of some of these special rules. 
He also gave one or two exercises in rapid addition, which 
were answered with what seemed astonishing rapidity and 
correctness : e.g._, 

73 + 27 + 65 = Answer 165. 

18 + 82 + 37 -f 63 -f 15 = Answer 215. 

Not till six or seven such sums had heen given did I 
notice that the first two numbers in each group amounted 
to 100, and the next two also ; and that all the questions 
were framed on the same pattern. Many of the audience 
did not detect this, but of course the children were in the 
secret, and were, in fact, confederates with the teacher in 
an imposture. It is because so much of what is called men- 
tal arithmetic consists of mere tricks of this kind that the 
subject has been somewhat justly discredited by good 
teachers. 

But the mental Arithmetic which is of real service does 

not consist in exercise in a few special rules, 
Its nses. T , . , . ^ 

but m rapid, varied, and irregular problems in 

all the forms which computation may take. It differs 
mainly from written Arithmetic, in that it uses small num- 
bers instead of large ones. Before attempting to work ex- 
ercises in writing in any rule, a good oral exercise should 
be given to familiarize the pupils with the nature of the 
operation. I will give a few examples to illustrate my 
meaning : 

(1) Addition and Suhtraction. Take the number 3, add to it 1 
and successively to the sums, up to 50. 
Examples 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, etc., etc. 

exercises. ^^ ^^*^ sevens: 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43, 50, 57, 64, 

71. Then take 50 or 100 and go rapidly backwards 
taking away 3 every time, or seven, or eleven. 

You will observe as you do this that there are certain com- 



Arithmetic as an Art, 323 

binations less easy than others. He whose turn it is to saj^ 21 
after 18, or to take away 3 from 32, will halt a moment longer thr" 
the rest. You observe this, and make up a series of questions in 
which these two particular numbers shall be brought into 'relation: 
28 and 3, 48 and 3, 19 and 3, 3 from 42, 3 from 21, etc. 

There are but nine digits, and if in succession you give nine 
short brisk lessons, — one on each, — requiring the number to be 
added and subtracted rapidly, you m ill come in succession upon 
every possible combination of these digits. You will bear in mind 
that when you yourself make an error in adding up a line of 
figures, you can trace it to some particular pair of units, say the 
8 and the 7, or the 9 and the 5, which habitually give you more 
trouble than the rest. It is only practice which can set you right. 
So the moment you observe any hitch or difficulty in special com- 
binations or subtractions, it is well to work at them till they be- 
come thoroughly familiar, till for example the sight of 8 and 7 
together instantly suggests 5 as the unit of the sum, or the taking 
away of 6 from a number ending in 3 instantly suggests 7. 

(2) Money. Little exercises on the arithmetic, first of a shilling, 
afterwards of half a crown, and afterwards of a sovereign, are very 
interesting, and require no slate or book. The scholars should be 
practised in rapid adding and subtracting, in dividing it into parts, 
in reduction to half- pence and farthings ; in telling different ways iu 
which the whole may be made up, e.g., a shilling into Id. and 5d, 
into 8^. and 4(Z., into 3^(Z. and Si (Z., into 4J(Z, and 7|(7., etc., until 
every form of arithmetical exercise possible with this sum of money 
shall be anticipated. 

(3} Simple Calculations in time; e.g., the timj it will be 3 hours 
hence, 8 hours, 12, 24 ; the date and day of the week, three days, 
four weeks, seventeen hours, two months hence ; and in like manner 
easy calculations respecting lengths and weights, may fitly precede 
all attempts to work sums in compound arithmetic by written ex- 
ercise. 

(4) Fractions. The first oral exercises] should be founded on 
familiar sums of money, and on the products already known in the 
multiplication-table and may be graduated in some such way 
as this : 

(a) The third of a shilling, the 8th, the 12th, the 4th, the 6th, 
etc. The fifth of 30, the ninth of 27, the third of 18, the twelfth of 
73, etc. 



324 Lectures on Teaching. 

(J)) f of 6d., f of 54, I of 21, J-j^ of 40, f of 16. 

(c) What number is tliat of wliicli 5 is | ; Of which 4 is f ; Of 
which 10 is f ; Of which 2s. is 4 ; Of which Is. 6d. is |? 

(d) Find other fractions equal to |, to |, to ^, to f, etc. 

(e) -^-^ of a foot, I of 1 lb., f of a week, r^^ of an hour. 

By selecting your examples from fractions which present no com- 
plications or remainders, and by rapidly varying and often repeating 
them, it is easy to advance a considerable distance in the manipula- 
tion of fractions, before talking at all about numerators and denom- 
inators, or giving out what is called a rule. 

(5) Exercises on special number's, (a) Take the number 60. Its 
half. Its third. Its fourth. Its fifteenth. Its sixteenth, etc. 

(6) Find two numbers which make 60 ; 24 and 36, 18 and 42, etc. 

" three numbers 11, 14 and 35 ; 21, 19 and 

20 ; 7, 35 and 18, etc. 

(c) Take from 60 in rapid succession, fours, sevens, elevens, 
eights, threes, etc. 

{d) Find f of 60, I, j%, j\, ii f, 1^, U> etc. 

(e) Give the components of 60 pence. Of 60 shillings. Of 60 
farthings. Of 60 ounces. Of 60 hours. Of 60 yards, etc. 

(/) Find in how many ways 60 hurdles might be arranged so as 
to enclose a space, or in how many forms a payment of £60 might 
be made. 

(6) Proportion, (a) Name other figures representing the same 
ratio as 5 : 7. As 3 : 8. As 15 : 21, etc., etc. 

(b) Find a fourth proportional to 2 : 3 : : 4. To 5 : 6 : : 10. To 
7 : 12 : : 6. 2s. : 2c. 6d. : : 4s. £3 : £1 5s. : : 6 oz. 

(c) Find two pairs of factors whose products are equal, and arrange 
the whole four in several ways so that they shall form proportions : 
e.g., because 5 X 24 = 8 X 15. Therefore 5 : 15 : : 8 : 24 and 
24 : 15 : : 8 : 5, etc., etc. 

A good teacher will invent hundreds of such exercises 
for himself^ and will not need a text-book. There is noth- 
ing unsound or meretricious in metal arithmetic of this 
kind. On the contrary^ it will prove to be one of the most 
effective instruments in making your scholars good com- 
puters. It will give readiness, versatility, and accuracy, 
and will be found an excellent preliminary training for the 



Arithmetic as an Art, 325 

working of ordinary sums in writing. Keep in view the 
general principle that the nature of each process should 
be made familiar by oral exercise before recourse is had 
to pen or pencil at all, and that the oral exercises should 
be of exactly the same kind as written sums, but should 
diifer only in their shortness, and in tKe fact that each 
j)roblem requires only one or at most two efforts of thought, 
and deals only with figures such as can be held in the mind 
all at once, without help from the eye. Mucli activity of 
mind is needed on the part of a teacher who conducts this 
exercise ; and it is not its least recommendation that when 
so conducted it challenges the whole thinking faculty of 
the children, concentrates their attention, and furnishes 
capital discipline in promptitude and flexibility of thought. 
In beginning to give lessons on money, weights, and 
measures, you may do well to make an occa- 

, . , T . • 4? • The use Of 

sional use 01 actual money, to give a tew coins near and 
in the hand and to let them be counted. In objects as 
French and Belgian schools, not only is a dia- measure- 
gram showing the form and proportion of the 
legal weights and measures displayed, but a complete set 
of the weights and measures themselves is deposited in 
every school : so that the children may be taught to handle 
and to use them, occasionally to weigh and measure the ob- 
jects near them, and to set down the results in writing. 
The dimensions of the school-room and of the principal 
furniture should be known, and a foot or a yard, or a 
graduated line of five or ten feet should be marked con- 
spicuously on the wall, as a standard of reference, to be 
used when lengths are being talked about. The area of 
the playground ; the length and width of the street or 
road in which the school stands ; its distance from the 
church or some other familiar object, the height of the 



326 Lectures on Teaching, 

church spire, should all be distinctly ascertained by the 
teacher, and frequently referred to in lessons wherein dis- 
tances have to be estimated. Children should be taught 
to observe that the halfpenny has a diameter of exactly 
one inch, and should be made to measure with it the width 
of a desk or the dimensions of a copy-book. It constantly 
happens, that if I ask elder children, who have- " gone 
through,^^ as it is called, a long course of computation in 
" long measure,^' to hold up their two hands a yard apart, 
or to draw a line three inches long on their slates, or to 
tell me how far I have walked from the railway station, or 
to take a book in their hands and tell me how much it 
weighs, their wild and speculative answers show me that 
elementary notions of the units of length and weight have 
not been, as they ought to be, conveyed before mere 
" ciphering " was begun. 

As to weights and measures, they are, as we all know, a 
"Weights and S^'^^^ stumbling-block. The books give us a 
measures. formidable list of tables, and children are sup- 
posed to learn them by heart. But a little discrimination 
is wanted here. It is needful to learn by heart the tables 
of those weights and measures which are in constant use, 
e.g. avoirdupois weight, long measure, and the number of 
square yards in an acre ; but it is not worth while to learn 
apothecaries' weight, cloth measure, or ale and beer meas- 
ure, because in fact these measures are not in actual or 
legal use ; and because the sums which the books contain 
are only survivals from an earlier age when the technical 
terms in these tables, puncheons, Mlderhins, scruples, and 
Flemish ells, had a real meaning, and were in frequent use. 
Keep these tables in the books by all means, and work 
some sums by reference to them : they are of course all 
good exercises in computation ; but here, as elsewhere, 



Arithmetic as an Art. 327 

abstain from giving to the verbal memory that which has 
no real value, and is not likely to come into use. 

It seems hardly necessary to refer to the efforts some 
teachers have made to use Arithmetic as a ve- ^orai lessons 
hide for the inculcation of Scriptural or other ^" ^^"^^• 
truths. Such efforts have been commoner in other coun- 
tries than our own. " How admirably/' says an enthu- 
siastic French writer on Arithmetic, '* does this science 
lend itself to moral and religious training." 

Pere Girard composed a manual of Arithmetic in which, 
for the most part, the problems given had a distinctly 
hortatory character, and were meant to embody economic 
and moral instruction. Here is an example : 

" Un pere de famille avait I'habitude d'aller tous les soirs an 
cabaret et laissait souvent sa famille sans pain a la maison. Pen- 
dant quatre ans qu'il a mene cette vie il a depense la premiere 
annee 197 fr., la seconde 204 fr., la troisieme 212 fr., et la quatrieme 
129 fr. Combien de francs aurait epargne ce malheureux pere s'il 
n'eut pas eu le gout de la boisson ? " 

And another French writer seeks on this wise to give a 
moral tone to his arithmetical lessons. He supposes the 
Cure to visit the school, and the teacher to say, 

What does the number 7 remind you of ? 

The 7 deadly sins, the 7 sacraments, and the 7 golden candle- 
sticks. 

What have you to tell me about the number 12 ? 

The number of the Apostles, the number of the minor prophets, 
and of the gates of the Apocalyptic Jerusalem." 

And then he turns to the children, " Mes eufants/' he 
says, '^ we have thus shown to our worthy pastor that we 
establish true relations between the art of computing and 
the principles of virtue and religion. Who will say after 
this that Arithmetic is not a moral and edifying study ? " 



328 Lectures on Teaching, 

— Who indeed ? Of conrse sums founded on Bible facts, 
on the age of Methnsaleh, or the length of Goliath^s spear, 
are innocent enough. But I suspect that all attempts of 
this kind to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, are 
very unsatisfactory. Moreover, it does not seem quite 
reverent to use books or names with which some of us 
have very sacred associations for the sake of manufacturing 
arithmetical puzzles for school-boys. After all, in just the 
proportion in which children pay attention to the sum and 
do it well as a question in arithmetic they will disregard 
the moral or religious lessons which have been thus arti- 
iicially forced into the exercise of counting. Arithmetic 
has indeed its own moral teaching. Eightly learned, it 
becomes a discipline in obedience, in fixed attention, in 
truthfulness and in honor. These are its appropriate les- 
sons, and they are well worth learning. But if you want 
to deal with drunkenness and extravagance, or to teach 
Bible History, it is better to adopt some other machinery 
than that of an arithmetic lesson. 

And touching one of these habits, that of fixed and con- 
Rapid com- centrated intellectual attention, it may be well 
putation. ^q j^g^r in mind how greatly it is helped by 
exercises in rapid counting. Now and then it is a useful 
exercise to have a match, and to let the scholars work a 
given number of sums against time, — say so many within 
half an hour. One great advantage of this is that it keeps 
the scholar^s whole power and faculty alive, and keenly 
bent on the one object. No irrelevant or foreign thought 
can for the time intrude into the mind. And quick work 
is not in arithmetic, as in so many other subjects, another 
name for hasty and superficial work. In this one depart- 
ment of school life slowness and deliberation are rather 
ensnaring than otherwise. Intervals are here of little or 



Arithmetic as an Art, . 329 

no value for reflection. They merely give an opportunity 
for the thoughts to wander. The quickest calculators are 
those who for the time during which they are engaged on 
a sum shut everything else but the sum out of their 
thoughts ; and they are for that very reason the best cal- 
culators. 

It must not be forgotten that arithmetic^ like all the 
other exact sciences, has the advantage of deal- 
ing wdth results which are absolutely certain, ^^^ ®^^* 
as far as we can claim certainty for anything we know. In 
mathematical and purely logical deduction we always 
know when we get at a result that it is either correct or 
incorrect. There are no degrees of accuracy. One answer 
is right, and every other possible answer is wrong. Hence 
if we want to get out of arithmetic the training in precision 
and conscientious exactness w^hich it is calculated to give, 
we must never be content with an answer which is approxi- 
mately right ; right for all practical purposes, or right in 
the quotient, but a little wrong in the remainder. The 
perfect correctness of the answer is essential, and I counsel 
you to attach as great importance to the minute accuracy 
of the remainder and what seems the insignificant part of 
the answer, as to the larger and more important parts of 
it. In mathematics no detail is insignificant. 

You will occasionally get answers not only wrong, but pre- 
posterously and absurdly wrong; e.g. you ask Exercises in 
what per cent, of profit is gained, and receive approximSe 
some thousands of pounds for the answer ; or answers, 
you ask a question the answer of which has to be time, 
and the pupil brings it you in pence. It is well to check 
this by often asking a scholar to tell approximately, and 
before he does his sum, what he expects the answer to be, — 
about how much, why e.g. it cannot be so great as a mil- 



33<^ Lectures on Teaching. 

lion, or so small as twenty, or in what denomination the 
answer is sure to come. And if he has not expected any- 
thing, nor exercised himself in any prevision as to what 
sort of answer should emerge, you are in a position at once 
to discern that he is not making the best sort of progress, 
and when you see this to apply a remedy at once. 

In teaching the art of computation it is legitimate to 
devise special exercises in order to cultivate 
ng:enm y. ingenuity. Such exercises may often be found 
in connection with different methods of proving or verify- 
ing the answers to sums. When the answer has been found, 
the data and the qucesita should be made to exchange 
places, and the scholars may be asked to construct new 
questions, so that each of the factors in the original prob- 
lem shall be made in turn to come out as the answer. 
Another method is to work out before the class in full a 
solution to a long and complex sum, and then invite the 
scholars to tell how the process might have been abridged ; 
which of the figures set down was not essential as a means 
of obtaining the answer, or might have been dispensed 
with. Indeed, the invention of contracted methods of 
working, whether by cancelling or otherwise, ought always 
to be at the suggestion of the scholar, and grow fairly out 
of his own experience in working by a needlessly long 
process. It should seldom or never be enunciated as a 
rule by the teacher. 

It is perhaps hardly necessary to remind any one here 
Commercial ^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^ mistake to measure the practical 
rules. utility of the arithmetical exercises you adopt 

by their visible relation to commerce, and to the affairs of 
life. Of course it is important that many of the prob- 
lems you set should be as like the actual problems of busi- 
ness as possible. Mere conundrums, obviously invented 



Arithmetic as an Art, 331 

by the bookmakers, are apt to seem very unreal to boys 
and girls ; and they prefer to confront the sort of diffi- 
culties which they are likely to meet with out of school. 
So I think it desirable that you should make sums out of 
the bills you pay, and bearing on what you know to be the 
rents of the houses, the income and expenditure of fami- 
lies of the class of life to which your pupils belong. You 
should keep your eyes open, and invent or take from the 
newspapers of the day little problems on the changing 
prices of goods, the weekly returns of births and deaths, 
the returns of the railway companies, or the fluctuations in 
the weekly wages of artisans. Simple examples of receipts, 
and of the use of a ledger and a balance-sheet, should also 
be given in connection with the smaller transactions, with 
which the scholars are most familiar. 

But do not suppose that exercises which have no osten- 
sible relation to real business are of inferior value even for 
practical purposes. What are often called commercial 
rules, such as discount, and tare and tret, are modified a 
good deal in the counting-house and bank, and are in their 
immediate application to business often far less serviceable 
than they seem. An eminent London Banker once said 
to me, " The chief qualifications I want in a clerk are, 
next to good character and associations, that he should 
write a good hand, that he should have been taught intel- 
ligently, especially in Arithmetic, and that he should not 
have learned book-keeping. We have our own method 
of keeping accounts, and a prententious system of school 
book-keeping has a number of technical terms which we 
do not use, and which hinder a lad from learning that 
method. But let him only have a good general knowl- 
edge of the principles of arithmetic and counting, and we 
will undertake to teach him all that is peculiar to the 



33 2 Lectures on Teaching, 

books of our house in less than a week." Perhaps this is 
an extreme case^ but I am convinced that attempts to an- 
ticipate the actual application of arithmetic to the par- 
ticular business in which a pupil may be hereafter en- 
gaged are generally mistakes. 

The application of arithmetic to the solution of problems 
is often limited in the books to what is called 
of practicS.^ business. But commerce is, after all^ only one, 
app ica ion. |-]^Q^^g]^ j^\^q most prominent, of the uses to 
which arithmetic has to be put in life. There are many 
interesting and varied applications to other purposes, which 
might be used with advantage : e.g., 

The computation of the time of falling bodies. 

The conversion of our weights and measures into 
French. 

Finding the length of circumference and radii, and the 
area of circles and squares. 

Actual measurement of the play-ground or a neighbor- 
ing field, and elementary land-surveying. 

The right use of annuity and insurance tables, e.g. the 
tables at the end of the Post-0 fpce Guide, will suggest many 
interesting forms of sums. 

The use of logarithmic tables, and the solution of tri- 
angles by means of them ; their application to the deter- 
mination of the heights of mountains or spires or the 
breadth of rivers. 

The difference of time between various places whose 
longitude is given. 

The measurement of distances on a map which has a 
scale of miles attached to it. 

The readings of the thermometer and the conversion of 
Fahrenheit to centigrade. 

The statistics of attendance in the school itself, and the 
method of computing its average attendance. 



Arithmetic as an Art, 333 

One great help to the easy solution of money questions 
is the habit of using decimal equivalents, or Re^^ction 
reducing sums of money at sight to decimals money^o^ 
of il. We are at present far from the adoption decimals, 
of a decimal coinage in England ; but we can by anticipa- 
tion enjoy, in our accounts at least, many of the advan- 
tages of a decimal system of money, by the adoption of a 
simple rule. Let it be observed that two shillings = i.l, 
that one shilling = i.05, that sixpence = i.025, and that 
a farthing differs only from i.OOl by a very small frac- 
tion ; and it then becomes very easy to frame a rule for 
conversion of ordinary expressions for money into their 
equivalent decimal expressions 

Thus £17 16s. 7id-=il7.832, because 16s. = 8 florins 
or £8; 6d = i.035, and 7 farthings = £.007. 

In like manner £21.367 = £21 -f 3 florins or £.3 + 1 
shilling or £.05 -f 17 farthings or £.017, or in all £21 7s. 

Half an hour's practice in conversion and reconversion 
in this way renders the process familiar. All questions in 
which the given sum of money does not extend to lower 
fractions than Qd. can evidently be solved with perfect ac- 
curacy by decimals, and without encumbering the mind 
with the ordinary reduction at all. ISTearly all questions 
in Interest and many in Practice and Proportion can be 
wrought much more expeditiously by this than by any 
other method. Precaution is needed in those questions 
only in which odd pence and farthings occur and require 
to be multiplied. 

These various applications of arithmetic have different 
degrees of utility; but their value is not to yisiwe reia- 
be measured by inquiring which of them is neSno^est" 
most likely to be practically useful. The true utmty. 
aim in devising exercises in practical arithmetic is to cul- 



334 Lectures on Teaching. 

tivate general power, fertility of resource, and qnickness 
in dealing with numbers ; the habit of seeing at once all 
round a new problem, of understanding its hearings, and 
applying the best rule for its solution. Power of this kind 
is available, not only in all businesses alike, but in the in- 
tellectual and practical life of those boys and girls who are 
not likely to go to business. And this general quickness 
and versatility is just as well promoted, we must remem- 
ber, by working problems which have an abstract look as 
by solving those in which the phraseology of the counter 
or the exchange is most ostentatiously used. 

One other department of mathematics which has found 
p ^ ^ its way into schools resembles Arithmetic in 
Geometry. being an Art and having useful practical 
applications, and also in furnishing disciplinal and purely 
intellectual exercise. Demonstrative Geometry has a value 
for this latter purpose, which, from the days of Plato and 
Archimedes, has been very generally recognized ; but the 
claims of merely practical geometry as a useful part both 
of primary and of secondary instruction appear to me to 
deserve more consideration than they generally receive. 
Every scholar should be taught to use the compass and 
ruler, and the quadrant and scale of equal parts. He 
should draw simple geometrical figures, as well as talk 
about them, and recognize their properties. He should 
know how to measure angles and lines, and to construct 
ordinary plane figures. In the best schools of Germany, 
France, and Switzerland these simple things are taught to 
every scholar as matter of course. You may hear a teacher 
dictate to the class directions one by one as to the con- 
struction of a figure. " Draw a line 15 centimetres long, 
then another line upon it at an angle of 35 degrees, then 
another line of a given length to the right or left, etc.^ 



Arithmetic as an Art. 335 

etc./^ until the class produces one after another figures 
which he has pre-determined, and of which the qualities 
and dimensions are afterwards explained and discussed in 
the class. The rules for practical geometry are compara- 
tively few and simple ; the exercise is interesting, and is 
a considerable relief from graver employment. It serves 
to familiarize the scholar with the properties of circles, of 
triangles, or of parallelograms, and so to make the future 
scientific study of geometry more intelligible. And for 
those who may never learn Euclid or even the modern sys- 
tem of demonstrative geometry, which seems destined to 
supersede it, geometrical drawing will be found to have a 
value of its own in enabling scholars to judge better of 
heights and distances, and to know at least the chief prop- 
erties of plane and solid figures. 



336 



Lectures on Teaching. 



Note on the form of Abacus. An ingenious modification of the 
Abacus, or ball-frame, in use in some of the French schools, pos- 
sesses some advantages over the square Chinese frame with hori- 
zontal bars which is in common use in English schools. It is thus 
constructed : 




A much greater variety of exercises in subtracting and com- 
bining numbers can be made by means of this instrument; and 
the upright lines may be made very useful in explaining the prin- 
ciple of our notation, and the necessity for keeping hundreds, tens, 
and units in columns. 



Arithmetic as a Science, 337 



XI. ARITHMETIC AS A SCIENCE. 

Haying sought to lay down some rules by which a 
teacher may be guided in making the mere arts of compu- 
tation and measurement effective parts of education, it 
becomes necessary to consider more fully the claims of 
Arithmetic as a science, and the reasons for assigning to it, 
as a disciplinal study, even a higher rank than would be 
due to its practical usefulness. 

We should all be agreed that the main purpose of our 
intellectual life is the acquirement of truth, and 
that one of the things we go to school to learn ^"^^*^®' 
is how to acquire it. The mere accumulation of facts and 
information does not supply what we want. The difference 
between a wise man and one who is not wise consists less 
in the things he knows than in the way in which he knows 
them. We call arithmetic a science, and science, it may 
be said, means knowledge. But there is a good deal of 
knowledge which is not science. Science, properly so 
called, is organized knowledge, knowledge of things and 
facts and events in their true relation and co-ordination, 
their antecedents and consequences, — the recognition of 
every separate phenomenon in the shifting panorama of 
life as an illustration of some principle or law, broader, 
higher and more enduring than itself. No number of 
facts or aphorisms learned by heart makes a man a thinker, 
or does him much intellectual service. Every particular 
fact worth knowing is connected with some general truth, 
and it is in the tracing of the connection and collocation 
of particular and separate truths with general and abiding 



33^ Lectures on Teaching. 

truths that science mainly consists. We may see hereafter 
that an historical fact is learned to little purpose unless it 
is seen in its bearing on some political^ economic^ or moral 
law. And we have already seen that a grammatical rule 
has scant meaning or use for us until it is seen as part of 
the science of language. ^ This distinction runs through all 
sound and fruitful acquirement^ and should always be 
present in the mind of a teacher. We must learn to see 
special facts and bits of experience in the light of the 
larger generalizations by which the world is governed and 
held together. We have so to teach as to develop the search- 
ing and inquiring spirit^ the love of truth^ and the habit 
of accurate reasoning. And if Arithmetic can be so taught 
as to serve this purpose^ it has a value which greatly tran- 
scends what seem to be its immediate objects^ and will 
be found to affect not the notions about number only, but 
also those about every other subject with which the under- 
standing has to deal. 

Here it seems right to take the opportunity of referring 
Induction and ^° ^ distinction much insisted on in books on 
deduction. education, and on which I have yet said little 
or nothing : I mean the distinction between inductive and 
deductive modes of reasoning. In studying some subjects, 
the learner begins by acquiring separate facts, and as he 
goes on learns to group them, to see their resemblances, 
and to arrive at last at some larger statement of fact which 
embraces and comprehends them all. This process is called 
" induction," and is the scientific method or process with 
which Bacon's name is generally identified, though I need 
hardly say that it is a process as old as the human intellect 
itself. Bacon only insisted on its importance, and helped 
to formulate it as an instrument for the discovery of truth. 
On the other hand^ there are some subjects to be studied. 



Arithmetic as a Science. 339 

in which you begin with the large^ general, universal truth, 
and proceed afterwards to deduce from this a number of 
special and detailed inferences. Such subjects are said to 
be studied deductively. In the former the movement of 
the thoughts is from the perception of particulars to the 
recognition of the general law. In the latter it is from the 
statement of the general to the recognition of the particu- 
lars. One sees that his neighbor is dead, he remembers 
the death of his parents or friends, he reads the history of 
the past, and by putting these experiences together, he 
arrives inductively at the conclusion — that All men are 
mortal. He accepts this proposition. He muses over it. 
He adds, I too am a man. And he concludes, I therefore 
am mortal. Here the process is deductive. And some- 
times in learning he must use one process, and sometimes 
another. And it is a great part of the business of educa- 
tion so to train the faculties that whichever jorocess we 
adopt we should use it rightly, that our generalizations 
shall be valid and sound generalizations, and that our in- 
ferences shall be true, not hasty and illegitimate infer- 
ences, from the facts which may come before us. 

ISTow Arithmetic and Geometry considered as sciences 
afford examples of both these kinds of learn- 
ing. If I work out a few problems by experi- and*M?the- 
mental and chance methods, and having seen ^^iJnt^t"^' 
how the answer comes out, arrive at the con- jSctiv^.*^^' 
elusion that one method is best, I have reached 
this result by the method of analysis or induction. But if 
I start from axioms and definitions, and afterwards apply 
these to the solution of problems, I am availing myself of 
the method of deduction. But the method of deduction 
is, after all, the characteristic mode of procedure in arith- 
metical as well as in all other departments of mathematical 



340 Lectures on Teaching, 

science. We shall see hereafter that the physical sciences 
furnish the best training in inductive reasoning, for there 
you have in fact no axioms or admitted truths to start from, 
and must in all cases begin by the observation of phe- 
nomena and the collocation of experience. But elemen- 
tary truths about number and about space, which are re- 
spectively the bases of arithmetic and geometry, have the 
great advantage of being very simj)le and very evident. 
They lie quite outside the region of contingency or con- 
troversy, and they therefore furnish a better basis for 
purely deductive or synthetic logic than any other class of 
subjects in which the very data from which we j^roceed are 
often disputed, or at least disputable. 

Take a geometrical axiom — an elementary truth con- 
cerning the properties of space — " two straight 
a training in lines cannot enclose a space ; " or an arith- 
^^^^' metical axiom, an elementary truth concern- 

ing the properties of number, ^^to multiply by two num- 
bers successively is to multiply by their product,^^ and we 
observe that the moment we state them we perceive their 
necessary truth ; there is no room for debate or difference 
of ojDinion ; to understand either statement is to accept it. 
And so wdth all other of the fundamental axioms of ge- 
ometry and arithmetic. Whatever particular facts prove 
ultimately to be contained in these general or universal 
truths must be true. As far as we can be certain of any- 
thing we are certain of these. 

Suppose then I want to give to myself a little training 
in the art of reasoning ; suppose I wish to get out of the 
region of conjecture or probability, free myself from the 
difficult task of weighing evidence, and putting instances 
together to arrive at general propositions, and simply de- 
sire to know how to deal with my general propositions 



Arithmetic as a Science. 341 

when I get them, and how to deduce right inferences 
from them ; it is clear that I shall obtain this sort 
of discipline best in those departments of thought in which 
the first principles are unquestionably true. For in all our 
thinking, if we come to erroneous conclusions, we come 
to them either by accepting false premises to start with — 
in which case our reasoning, however good, will not save 
us from error ; or by reasoning badly, in which case the 
data we start from may be perfectly sound, and yet our 
conclusions may be false. But in the mathematical or pure 
sciences, — geometry, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, the 
calculus of variations or of curves, — we know at least that 
there is not, and cannot be, error in our first principles, 
and we may therefore fasten our wdiole attention upon the 
processes. As mere exercises in logic, therefore , these 
sciences, based as they all are on primary truths relating 
to space and number, have always been supposed to fur- 
nish the most exact discipline. When Plato wrote over the 
portal of his school, '^ Let no one ignorant of geometry 
enter here," he did not mean that questions relating to 
lines and surfaces would be discussed by his disciples. On 
the contrary, the topics to which he directed their atten- 
tion were some of the deepest problems, — social, political, 
moral, — on which the mind could exercise itself. Plato 
and his followers tried to think out together conclusions 
respecting the being, the duty, and the destiny of man, 
and the relation in which he stood to the gods and to the 
unseen world. What had geometry to do with these 
things ? Simply this : That a man whose mind had not 
undergone a rigorous training in systematic thinking, and 
in the art of drawing legitimate inferences from premises, 
was unfitted to enter on the discussion of these high topics ; 
and that the sort of logical discipline which he needed was 



342 Lectures on Teaching. 

most likely to be obtained from geometry — the only math- 
ematical science which in Plato's time had been formulated 
and reduced to a system. And we in this countiy hive long 
acted on the same principle. Our future lawyers^ clergy, 
and statesmen are expected at the University to learn a 
good deal about curves, and angles, and numbers and pro- 
portions ; not because these subjects have the smallest re- 
lation to tlie needs of their lives, but because in the very 
act of learning them they are likely to acquire that habit 
of steadfast and accurate thinking, which is indispensable 
to success in all the pursuits of life. 

What mathematics therefore are expected to do for the 
Arithmetic advanced student at the University, Arithme- 
matS*of^tiie ^^^' '^^ taught demonstratively, is capable of do- 
Schooi. -y^.y Iqj. ^\^q children even of the humblest 

school. It furnishes training in reasoning, and particularly 
in deductive reasoning. It is a discipline in closeness and 
continuity of thought. It reveals the nature of fallacies, 
and refuses to avail itself of unverified assumptions. It 
is the one department of school-study in which the scep- 
tical and inquisitive spirit has the most legitimate scope ; 
in which authority goes for nothing. In other depart- 
ments of instruction you have a right to ask for the 
scholar's confidence, and to expect many things to be re- 
ceived on your testimony with the understanding that they 
will be explained and verified afterwards. But here you 
are justified in saying to your pupil, '' Believe nothing 
which you cannot understand. Take nothing for granted." 
In short, the proper office of arithmetic is to serve as ele- 
mentary training in logic. All through your work as 
teachers you will bear in mind the fundamental difference 
between knowing and thinking ; and will feel how much 
more important relatively to the health of the intellectual 



Arithmetic as a Science. 343 

life the habit of thinking is than the power of knowing, 
or even facility in achieving visible results. But here this 
principle has special significance. It is by Arithmetic more 
than by any other subject in a school course that the art 
of thinking — consecutively, closely, logically — can be ef- 
fectually taught. 

I proceed to offer some practical suggestions as to the 
manner in which this principle, if once recognized, should 
dominate the teaching of Arithmetic, and determine your 
methods. 

You have first of all to take care that so much of our 
Arithmetical system as is arbitrary and con- our artificial 
ventional shall be shown to be so, and not con- flotation. 
founded with that part of Arithmetic which is perma- 
nently true, and based on the properties of number. We 
have for example adopted the number ten as the basis of 
our enumeration ; but there is nothing in the science of 
numbers to suggest this. Twelve or eight, or indeed any 
other number, might have served the same purpose, though 
not with quite the same convenience. Again the Arabic 
notation adopts the device of place to show the different 
■^'■alues of figures, e.g. : In 643 the 6 is shown to mean 
6 tens of tens, and the 4 to mean 4 tens, by the place in 
which they stand. But convenient as this arrangement is, 
other devices might have been adopted, which would have 
fulfilled the same purpose ; and the Eoman mode of rep- 
resenting the same number by DCXLIII may be with ad- 
vantage compared ; and its inconvenience practically 
tested by trying to work a sum w^ith it. Again the wholly 
artificial and accidental way in which our system of weights 
and measures has originated should, when the proper time 
comes, be explained, and a comparison be made with some 
other system, especially the French Systeme Metrique. 



344 Lectures on Teaching, 

Generally it may be said that when you find yourself con- 
fronted with any arithmetical devices or terminology which 
are arbitrary in their character, you will do well to show 
their arbitrariness by comparing them with some others 
which are equally possible. 

The first occasion comes when you explain the decimal 
Illustration character of our common arithmetic, the de- 
maV^method ^^^^® ^"^ distinguishing the meaning of the va- 
of notation, rjous multiples of ten and of the powers of ten, 
by their places and nearness to the unit ; and the use of 
the cipher or naught (0). Here an appeal to somiC visible 
or tangible illustration will help you much. I take from 
an ingenious French book i an example of such an appeal. 




Here you observe some balls or marbles are used to rep- 
resent units, bags containing ten of them to represent tens, 
boxes containing ten such bags to represent hundreds, and 
baskets containing ten boxes each represent thousands. 
When this has been shown, you may further illustrate the 
nature of our notation by an addition sum, as in the dia- 
gram opposite. 

You require in succession that the numeration of each 
line should be explained orally, you call special attention 

^ L'Arithmetique du grand-papa; histoire de deux petits mar- 
chands de pommes, par Jean Mace. Paris, Collection Hetzel. 



Arithmetic as a Science, 



345 



Ail 



O.'i^ (bifida $h 

5 5 6 

8 7 

8 9 



to the need and special use of the in the second line. It 
is seen that the first column makes 33, and that of them 30 
may be included in 3 bags, and 3 remain. The addition of 
the next line gives 30, and shows the need of a device for 
marking the vacant place, and showing that there are no 
odd tens. The 26 hundreds are 
then shown to consist of 2 bas- 
kets full containing 10 boxes 
each, and of 6 boxes or hun- 
dreds remaining. These two 
baskets added to the four bas- 
kets represent six thousands. 

Thus the fundamental parts 
of our system of notation— the 
device of place, the counting by 
tens, the use of the cipher, and 
the need of carrying, are all 
made clear to the eye and to the 
understanding of your pupil. 

Many other forms of visible 
illustration have been devised, 
but it will be far better for you 
to exercise your own ingenuity 
in inventing them. Only bear 
in mind the rule of action al- 
ready urged upon you. When 
your box of cubes, your aba- 
cus, your number pictures, your 
diagrams representing collec- 
tions of tens, have succeeded in 
making the subject intelligible, 
have the courage to cast them 
aside. Arithmetic is an abstract science, and the sooner 



5 

€30 
1 



an 
4 



5 



8 




34^ Lectures on Teaching. 

scholars can see its truths in a pure and abstract form, the 
better. It is not an uncommon fault among Pestalozzian 
teachers to employ what are sometimes called intuitional 
methods^ long after they have served their purpose, and 
when the pupil is quite ready to deal intelligently with 
abstract rules. 

One very effective way of making the decimal notation 
Scales of clear is to assume some other number than ten 
otoe?tSaii ^^ ^^^ possible base of a system of notation, 
decimal. ^aidi to invite the scholars to consider with you 

how numbers would have been represented on that sys- 
tem. It may be shown that as a system founded on tens 
requires nine digits and a cipher, so a quaternary system 
would have required three digits only, an undenary would 
have required one more digit than we use, say x: and that 
a Unary scheme of notation applicable to the highest num- 
bers would have been possible with one digit and a cipher 
only, since all large numbers would then have been gath- 
ered into twos and powers of two, instead of into tens and 
powers of ten. 

By questions and suggestions you and your scholars 
come to frame on the black-board some such table as this : 



Decimal Scale. Scale of two. Scale of six. Scale of eleven. 



1 


1 


1 


1 


2 


10 


2 


2 


3 


11 


3 


3 


4 


100 


4 


4 


5 


101 


5 


5 


6 


110 


10 


6 


7 


111 


11 


7 


8 


1000 


12 


8 


9 


1001 


13 


9 


.0 


1010 


14 


X 


.1 


1011 


15 


10 



Arithmetic as a Science. 347 



limal Scale. 


Scale of two. 


Scale of six. 


Scale 


12 


1100 


20 


11 


13 


1101 


21 


12 


14 


1110 


22 


13 


15 


nil 


23 


14 


16 


10000 


24 


15 


17 


10001 


25 


16 


18 


10010 


30 


17 


19 


10011 


31 


18 


20 


10100 


32 


19 



A few easy sums to be worked out in numbers arranged 
on these scales, and afterwards verified by conversion into 
ordinary numbers, will do much to clear the mind of the 
pupils as to the wholly artificial character of the decimal 
notation. 

When you come to Weights and Measures, and before 
requiring tables to be learned by heart, it is 
well as I have said to give a short historical systeme 
lesson showing how our system grew up. The ^^ "que. 
fact that we want fixed units of length, of weight, and of 
capacity to serve as the basis of all calculation, and the 
curious fact that nature does not supply by any single ob- 
ject a determinate and unalterable unit of any one of them, 
will partly account for the queer and irregular way in 
which we have from time to time based our calculations 
on grains of barley, on the vibrations of the pendulum, or 
the length of Henry I.^s arm. With a good diagram, such 
as is in use in all the French schools, it may then be shown 
how the unit of length, the Metre, which forms the base 
of the metric system, is obtained from the measurement 
of a definite part of the earth's meridian ; how this unit 
squared gives the unit of surface, the Are; how the same 
unit cubed gives the units both of magnitude and of ca- 
pacity, the Litre and the Stere: how a given bulk so 



34^ Lectures on Teaching. 

measured of distilled water gives the unit of weight, the 
Gramme; how a certain weight of silver gives the unit of 
value, the Franc; and how all these units, by a simple 
nomenclature, are subject to decimal multiplication and 
sub-division. It is only when a simple and scientific sys* 
tern like this is seen in all its details — and the whole of 
it may easily be explained and learned in one half-hour^s 
lesson — that the real nature of the confusion and ano- 
malies of our own system of compound arithmetic comes 
into clear light. 

Every rule you teach should be first of all made the 
subject of an oral lesson and demonstration. 
shou^idbe The method of experiment and induction will 
ed before " often enable you to arrive at the rule and show 
learned w its necessity. One of the first rules in which 
prac se . ^^^ difference between a skilled teacher and 
a mere slave of routine becomes apparent is the early rule 
of Subtraction. You want, for example, to take 479 from 
853, and the method of so-called explanation is apt to be 
like this : 

" 9 from 3 I cannot ; Borrow 10. 9 from 13 
leaves 4. Set down 4. 
853 " Carry 1 to the 7. 7 and 1 are 8 ; 8 from 5, 

479 I cannot ; borrow 10 ; 8 from 15 leaves 7. Set 

374 down 7. 

" Carry 1 to the 4. 4 and 1 are 5. 5 from 8 
leaves 3. Set down 3.^' 

Now, of course, if the object is to get the right answer, 

that object is fulfilled, for 374 is undoubtedly 

Subtraction. (.Qj-^ect. But as an exercise in intelligence I 

hope you see that this is utterly worthless. The word 

borrow ^' has been put into the children's mouths, but 



iC 



Arithmetic as a Science, 349 

whence the ten is borrowed^ why it is borrowed, or what 
sort of morality that is which permits yon to " borrow 
ten'^ in one direction, and pretends to compensate by 
'^ paying back one " in another, are points which are left 
in obscurity. Language like this, which simulates ex- 
planation and is yet utterly unintelligible, is an insult to 
the understanding of a child ; it would be far better to 
tell him at once that the process is a mystery, than to em- 
ploy words which profess to account for it, and which yet 
explain nothing. 

There are two ways in which, with a little pains, the 
reason of this rule may be made clear even to Metiiod of de- 
the youngest class. Thus : composition. 

853 ^ 7 hundreds + 14 tens -f 13 
479 = 4 " +7" +9 

374 3 7 ^ 



'^ 9 cannot be taken from 3 ; so borrow one of the tens 
from the 50 (in other words, resolve 53 into 40 and 13). 
9 from 13 leaves 4. Set down 4 in the units^ place. 

" 7 tens cannot be taken from 4 tens ; so borrow 1 from 
the 8 hundreds (in other words, resolve 8 hundreds and 4 
tens into 7 hundreds and 14 tens). 7 tens from 14 tens 
leaves 7 tens. Set down 7 in the tens' place. 

" 4 hundreds from 7 hundreds leave 3 hundreds. Set 
down 3 in the hundreds' place." 

■ Now here you will observe that the word '^ borrowing " 
is not inappropriate. But there is no paying back ; for 
you have only borrowed from one part of your minuend 
853 to another, and dealt with its parts in a slightly dif- 
ferent order from that indicated by the figures. You have 
simply resolved 800-|-50+3, for your own convenience. 



350 Lectures on Teaching. 

into the form 700+140+13 ; and have left the subtra- 
hend 479 untouched. I do not say this is the best method 
of workings but it is, at least, easy to explain ; and the lan- 
guage you employ is self-consistent throughout. 

The second method is a little harder to explain, but 
easier to work. It is that most generally 

Method of T X n • 11 -n ^ 1 i? 1 • X 

equal addi- adopted in schools. i>ut beiore beginning to 
do a sum by it, it is worth while to explain to 
your class the very simple principle that " the difference 
between unequal quantities is not altered, if we add equal 
quantities to both." If I have five shillings in one pocket 
and seven in another, the difference is two (7 — 5^2) ; but 
if I afterwards put three shillings into each pockety the 
difference is still two (10 — 8=2). By very simple illus- 
tration of this kind you may easily bring children to the 
conclusion, that if, for any reason, we think it convenient 
to add equal sums to two numbers whose difference we 
want to find, we are at liberty to do so without affecting 
the accuracy of the answer. When this has been explained, 
the sum may be thus worked : 



853 + 100 + 10 
479 + 100 + 10 


8 hundreds, 15 tens 13 
5 hundreds, 8 tens 9 


374 


8 hundreds + 7 tens + 4 



^^ 9 from 3 cannot be taken. Add 10 to the upper 
line. 9 from 13 leaves 4. Set down 4. 

" Having added 10 to the upper line, I add ten to the 
lower. 8 tens from 5 tens cannot be taken. Add 10 tens 
to the upper line, 8 tens from 15 tens leave 7 tens. Set 
down 7. 

" Having added 10 tens, or 1 hundred to the upper line, 
we must add 1 hundred to the lower ; 5 hundreds from 8 
hundreds leave 3 hundreds. Set down 3." 



Arithmetic as a Science o 351 

But here it is observable that you have not performed 
the problem proposed. You have not taken 479 from 
853 ; but you have added first 10, and afterwards 1 hundred 
to each, and the real problem performed has been to take 
479+110, or 500+80+9 from 853+110, or from 800+ 
150+13. But this, according to the principle first ex- 
plained, gives the same result as to take the first number 
from the second without the addition of the hundred and 
ten. 

Yet the comtmon phraseology employed about borrowing 
and carrying is equally inappropriate, and therefore equally 
bewildering, in both these processes. For by the first 
method there may be borrowing, but there is no carrying ; 
and by the second, there is neither borrowing nor carry- 
ing, but equal addition. 

A.nother device to which a good teacher resorts early is 
the making of the Multiplication Table in the learners 
presence of the class, and with its help. Gen- ^^\^§^^ 
erally the whole of that formulary is placed own tables, 
before the scholars, and they are required to learn it by 
heart, without knowing how it is formed or why. Now 
if the teacher says he is going to make up the table of 
multiplication by twos, and then writes 2 on the board, 
and requires the scholars to repeat the number, so that he 
writes down each result and records at the side the num- 
ber of twos which have been added, he makes it clear to 
the scholars that multiplication is only a series of equal 
additions, and that the rule is only a device for shortening 
a particular form of addition sum. He will then deal in 
like manner with each of the 9 digits in succession, and 
afterwards efface what he has written and require the 
scholars to manufacture their own table before learning it. 



352 Lectures on Teaching. 

One very effective way of making the theory of a process 
Aritiimeticai ^lear^ is to adopt the method to which I may 
parsing. g^^g -j-j^g name of " arithmetical parsing." It 

consists in drawing out before the class the whole of a 
given process without abridgment, and then analyzing it 
in such a way that a separate account shall be given of 
every figure in succession, showing clearly how and why 
it plays a part in obtaining the final result. I take an 
example from Simple Division, although almost every other 
rule would do as well. I suppose that by simple examples 
you have shown what Division is, that you have deduced 
from the division of the parts — say of a shilling, and from 
some such example as this : 

Because 27 = 12 + 9 -f 6 
Therefore the third of 27 or -V- = ^f + 1 + 1 or 4 + 3+2, 

the general truth that " we divide one number by 
another when we divide each of the parts of the first suc- 
cessively by the second, and add the quotients together." 
It is then seen that when the dividend is a large number, 
it has to be resolved into such parts as can be dealt with 
one by one, in order that all the several results as they are 
obtained shall be added together to make the whole. An 
example may be worked thus : Divide 34624 by 7 : 

7(34624 



4000 


— 


28000 -4- 


< 


900 


= 


6300 -^ 


7 


40 


r=z 


280 -^ 


7 


6 


= 


42 -^ 


7 


f 


= 


2 -^ 


7 



4946f ==34624 -^ 7 



Arithmetic as a Science. 353 

This method of analysis is especially effective in what 
is called Long Multiplication, in Division, and also in 
Practice ; for in these rules the answer comes out piece- 
meal, and it is both easy and interesting to challenge pu- 
pils for the separate significance and value of each line of 
figures as it is arrived at. 

In the exercise just given it is well to call attention to 
the fact that the whole problem has not in fact been 
solved, for that all the dividend except 2 has been divided ; 
but the seventh part of two remains undiscovered, and 
must for the present remain in the form -| or the seventh 
part of two. 

Here then is the proper place to begin the explanation 
of fractions. They ought not be postponed 
later, certainly not placed as they often are fhouid°?e 
most improperly, after proportion. The re- ^^^^ ^^^ ^' 
mainder of a division sum suggests the necessity of dealing 
with the parts of unity. Here an appeal may be made to 
the eye : 



and it may be demonstrated that one seventh of two inches 
is the same as two sevenths of one inch. I need not say 
that in your early lessons on fractions, the method of 
visible illustration is especially helpful, and that by draw- 
ing squares or other figures and dividing them first into 
fourths and eighths, then into thirds, sixths and ninths, 
or by the use of a cube divided into parts, you may make 
the nature of a fractional expression very evident even to 
young children, and may deduce several of the fundamen- 
tal rules for reduction to a common denomination, and for 
addition and subtraction. 



354 Lectures on Teaching. 

fractions afford excellent discipline in reasoning and re- 
flection. JSTo one of the rules should, be given on authority, 
every one of them admits of being thought out and arrived 
at by the scholars themselves, with very little of help and 
suggestion 'from their teacher. What, for example, can be 
more unsatisfactory than the rule for Division of Fractions 
if blindly accepted and followed. " Invert the divisor and 
treat it as a multiplier." This seems more like conjuring 
with numbers than performing a rational process. But 
suppose you first present the probleui and determine to 
discover the rule. You here find it needful to enlarge a 
little the conception of what Division means. "What is 
it," you ask, " to divide a number ? " It is 

(1) To separate a number into equal parts ; 

(2) To find a number which multiplied by the divisor 
will make the dividend ; 

(3) To find how many times, or 'parts of a time, the 
divisor is contained in the dividend. 

It will have been shown before, that this expression 
" the parts of a time " is necessary in dealing with frac- 
tions, and involves an extension of the meaning of the word 
divisor as ordinarily understood in dealing with integer 
numbers. You may then proceed to give four or five little 
problems graduated in difficulty ; e.g., 

(1) Divide 12 bj i. What does this mean? To find how many 
times ^ is contained in 12. But i is contained three times in 1, so it 
must be contained 3 X 12 times in 12. Wherefore to divide by ^ is 
the same as to multiply by 3. 

(2) Divide 15 by f . Tliis means to find how many times f are con- 
tained in 15. But \ must be contained in it 15 X 4 or 60 times. So 

4 X 15 
I must be contained in it one third of 60 times or — - — . Wherefore 

o 

to divide by f is the same as to multiply by -f. 

1^. This means to divide by the fourth part of 3. 



Arithmetic as a Science. 355 

5 

Let us first divide by 3. Now f divided by 3 = = -, or /y. But 

7 X o 

since we were not to divide by three but by tlie fourth part of 3, this 

result is too little, and must be set right by multiplying by 4. Hence 

4X5 

— — — is the answer. Wherefore to divide | by | is the same as to 

multiply by |. 

(4) To divide f by | is to find how often f is contained in f. Let 
us bring them to a common denominator f = ||, and f = |i. The 
question therefore is how often are || contained in |§ ? Just as often 
as 21 shillings are contained in 20 shillings : that is to say not once, 
but 1^ of a time, for this fraction represents the number of times 
that 20 contains 21. Wherefore | -f- | = f x f 

(5) To divide f by | is to find a fraction which if multiplied by | 
will make f . That means that f of this unknown fraction will make 
f. But whenever A is I oi B, B must be | of A. Hence the desired 
fraction must be | of f . But this is the same fraction which would 
have been produced by inverting the divisor and making it as a mul- 
tiplier. 

Wherefore to divide by any fraction is to multiply by its reciprocal, 
or 

a c _ a d 

Q. E. D. 

I recommend that after each of these short exercises 
the numbers be altered, and the scholars required one by 
one to go through the demonstration orally. This will be 
found to serve exactly the same purpose as the proving of 
a theorem in geometry. It calls out the same mental quali- 
ties, demands concentration of thought, and careful ar- 
rangement of premises and conclusion, and furnishes an 
effective though elementary lesson in logic and in pure 
mathematics. 

The habit of registering the result of any such process, 
or embodying any truth you have ascertained jjieuseof 
in the shape of a formula in which the letters formulae, 
of the alphabet are substituted for numbers is a very use- 



356 Lectures on Teaching, 

ful one. The pupil makes a clear advance in abstract 
thinking ; if^ for example^ after showing that equal addi- 
tions to two numbers do not alter their difference^ and il- 
lustrating this by such examples as 

Because 12—7=5, therefore (12+8)— (7+8)=5, 

you help him also to see the truth of this : 

If a — l)=c, then {a-\-n) — {h-\-n)=c. 

Do not suppose that this is algebra. No one of the notions 
, or processes proper to algebra is here involved. It is simply 
the statement of an arithmetical truth in its most abstract 
form. It lifts your pupil, out of the region of particulars 
into the region of universal truths. It helps him to see 
that what is true of certain numbers and what he has 
actually verified in the case of those numbers is necessarily 
true of all numbers. So I recommend the practice of em- 
bodying each arithmetical truth as you arrive at it in a gen- 
eral formula. 

There is not a single process in Arithmetic out of which 
you may not get real intellectual training as 
meticafpu?-' well as practical usefulness, if you will only 
^^^^' set this before you as one of the objects to be 

attained. The plea that it takes time, and hinders progress, 
is, in my opinion, wholly invalid. What do you mean by 
progress ? It is surely not hastening to what are called 
advanced rules. It is rather such increased mastery of the 
fundamental principles of arithmetic as will enable the 
pupil to invent rules for himself. And this he will attain 
if you set him thinking about the meaning of every process 
which you require him to use. Put before your class occa- 
sionally little facts about numbers, and ask them to find 



Arithmetic as a Science. 357 

out the reasons for them. Here are two or three simple 
examples of what I mean : 

{a) If the numbers in the following series progress by 
equal additions 

1 . 3 . 5 . 7 . 9 . 11 . 13 . 15 . 17 . 19 . 21, 

why is it that each pair of numbers, e.g. the first and the 
last, the second and the last but one, the third and the last 
but two, etc., equals 22, a number equal to twice 11, the 
middle term ? 

(&) If I take any number — say 732586, and any other 
composed of the same digits, say 257638, and subtract one 
from the other, thus : 

732586 why is it that the digits of the remainder are 
^^"^^^^ sure to give me an exact number of nines 
iZl^i^ 4+7+4+9+4+8=36=4X9 ? 

(c) If I take four numbers in proportion or representing 
two equal ratios, e.g. 6 : 24 :: 5 : 20, why is it that 6 times 
20 must equal 24X5 ? 

In this last case you will do well to make the scholar 
deduce the equality of the two products as a necessity from 
the fact that the four numbers are in proportion. He sees 
that 24 and 5 make a certain product, and because ex 
JiypotJiesi 6 is as many times less than 24 as 20 is more 
than 5, therefore that the product of 6 and 20 must equal 
that of 5 and 24. And when this is seen to be necessarily 
true of all proportions, the ordinary rule for finding one 
of the factors when the other three are given will readily 
be supplied by the pupils themselves. 



358 Lectures on Teaching. 

Proportion^ however, though it is a very interesting and 
valuable part of arithmetical science, and 
Proportion, though its principles furnish excellent oppor- 
tunities for exercise in logical demonstration, is of less 
practical utility in the solution of problems than the text- 
books seem to assume. The Eule of Three is a great 
stumbling-block to learners. It comes much too early in 
the course, and learned empirically, as it too often is, it 
is not readily capable of application to problems. Nearly 
all the questions usually set down under the head of '' Eule 
of Three '' can be much better solved by simpler methods. 
Such a question as this for example : 

"If 17 articles cost i23 10s., what will 50 such articles 
cost?'^ 

ought not to be stated and worked as Proportion ; but by 
the method of reduction to unity, thus : 

One article must cost £23 10s. -f- 17. Therefore, 50 

^ ^ £23 10s. X 50 
articles must cost — . 

Thus the true place for the theory of proportion is after 
fractions, vulgar and decimal, have been well understood 
and seen in varied applications. 

My last illustration shall be taken from an advanced 
Extraction ^^^^> ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ Extraction of the Square 
of roots. Eoot. I will, as before, take an easy sum, and 

the directions for solving it, as given in the ordinary 
books. 

Find the square root of 676, or the number which, mul- 
tiplied by itself, will give 676. 



Arithmetic as a Science. 359 

EuLE — "Point off the alternate nnmbers 
from the nnit^ and thus divide the numbers ^„ , ^ 

into periods. * 

" Find the nearest square root of the first .n \ ~^Wn / r- 
period^ and subtract its square. r)^g 

" (The nearest square root of 6 is 2 ; set 

down 2, and take twice 2 from 6.) 

" Set down the remainder, and bring down the next 
period. 

" (Set down 2 and bring down 76.) 

" Double the first figure, set it down, and use it as a 
trial divisor for the two first figures. Place the quotient 
thus found to its right, and then divide as usual. (Set 
down 6 after the 4 and multiply 46 by 6.) 

"26 is the number sought, and is the square root of 

Really, as I recite it, the rule sounds more like a riddle, 
or a series of instructions in numerical legerdemain, than 
an appeal to the understanding. Whatever be the accuracy 
or worth of the result produced, it is certain that the pro- 
cess so described will do more to deaden than to invigorate 
the thinking faculty of any one who practises it. More- 
over, as the rule appears utterly arbitrary, the memory 
will have great difficulty in retaining it, and without con- 
stant and toilsome practice, will probably not retain it at 
all. 

Now before describing to you the rational process of 
attaining this result, I may remind you that in ^j^^ synthetic 
the earlier part of arithmetic the rules came in inaiyUcai*^^ 
pairs. Thus, in Addition, you have the parts ^^^^• 
given, and are required to find the whole ; and this rule 
is followed by Subtraction, in which you have the whole 



360 Lectures on Teaching. 

given and one of the parts^ and are required to find the 
other part. So also in Multiplication^ the factors are 
given, and you have to find their product ; and then there 
is the inverse process of Division, in which the product 
and one of the factors are given, and you are required to 
find the other factor. In each case the former process is 
one of synthesis, or putting parts together, and the latter 
process one of analysis or decomposition of parts. But we 
all feel this order to be a natural and proper one. You 
would not teach Subtraction before Addition, nor Division 
before Multiplication ; because imless a learner in this 
science first knows how to put the parts together to make 
the result, he is not in a position, with the result before 
him, to find out how that result is produced. N"ow the 
rule for finding the square root of a number is obviously 
a rule of decomposition or analysis, and is one of a pair 
of rules, analogous to Multiplication and Division, of which 
the one shows how to form the second power of a num- 
ber out of the multiples of its parts, and the other shows 
how, when the second power of a number is given, to find 
the parts of that number of which it is the second power. 
But this rule for Evolution presupposes the rule of In- 
volution ; and cannot, in fact, be properly understood, 
unless that rule has first been learned. Yet in text-books 
of arithmetic no mention is generally made of Involution, 
but the pupil is introduced at once to the Extraction of 
the Square Rbot. 

Instead, therefore, of departing from the analogy of the 

earlier rules of arithmetic, and plunging at 

once into the rule for the extraction of roots, 

before we examine the formation of squares, let us begin 



Arithmetic as a Science. 361 

by trying to find the second power of an easy number com- 
posed of two parts. Thus : 

Because 11=7+4; then llXll==(7+4)X(7-i-4). 

But on multiplying each of these parts of eleven by each 
of the parts of eleven successively, and adding them to- 
gether, I find I have four distinct products, of which the 
first is the square or second power of 7, the last is the 
square or second power of 4, and the remaining two are 
alike, each being the product of 7 and 4. 

7 + 4 
7 + 4 



(4 
(7 


X 7) + 
X 7) + 


(4 
(7 


X 4) 
X 4) 






= (7 + 4) X 4 
= (7 + 4) X 7 






7' + 2 (7 


X 4) 


+ 


4^ 


= (7 + 4) X (7 


+ 4' 


( 


or 49 + 


2 


X 28 


+ 


16 


= 121 





And in this way we may easily arrive at this general 
truth : 

"If a number consists of two parts, the second power 
of the whole number consists of the second power of the 
first part, together with the second power of the second 
part, together with twice the product of the first and sec- 
ond parts." 

I will suppose that you have, by the help of varied illus- 
trations, made your pupils perfectly familiar with this 
proposition — and led them 'to recognize it under the gen- 
eral abstract formula : 

lla = h-{-c then a' = ¥ + ^' + "Ihc. 

You are now in a position to deal with the problem 
originally proposed : Find the square root of 676. 



362 Lectures on Teaching. 

" Tens multiplied by tens give hnn- 
Evoiution. dreds, therefore the square root of hun- 

dreds will be tens. 

" The nearest square root to 600 is 
676/20 + 6 3 tens. 

400\= 20' " Take from &1Q the square of 2 tens 

40\276/6 or 400. 

y240\=: (40 X 6) " There remain 276. 
-^ _ g2 c< Tj^erefore, the square root of 676 is 

greater than 20, and consists of 20 plus 
another number." 
But if so, the remainder 276 must contain not only the 
square of that other number, hut twice the product of the 
number 20 and that number. With a view to find that num- 
ber, try how many times twice 20 are contained in the re- 
mainder. The number 6 appears to fulfil this condition. 
See now, if 276 contains six times 40, together with 6 times 
6, or 6 times 46 in all. If so, 6 is the unit figure of the 
required root. It has now been shown that 676 contains 
the square of 20, and the square of 6, and twice the pro- 
duct of 20 and 6. 

or 26' = 20' + 6' + 2 (20 X 6) 
400 + 36 + 240 =r. 676. 

The whole explanation of this inverse process is evi- 
dently deducible from the simple law of involution first 
described. The reason of the pupil follows every step, and 
acquiesces in a rule, otherwise prima facie absurd, and 
therefore hard to remember. All this is of course very 
familiar and simple to the student of algebra ; but I have 
never been able to understand why it should be postponed 
to algebra, or why the principles of arithmetic, requiring 



Arithmetic as a Science, 363 

as they do for their elucidation no use of symbols, no re- 
condite language, nothing but simple numerical processes, 
should not be taught on their own merits, and in their 
own proper place. 

An appeal to the eye will greatly help the understanding 
of the rule for the extraction of the square 
root. A square may be erected in a line di- tru^hs^in^ 
vided into two unequal parts, and it will be andGeome- 
seen to be separable into four spaces whose di- ^^' 
mensions correspond to the products just given. After- 
wards a square on a line divided into three or more parts 
may be shown, and the dimensions of the several parts 
may be expressed in numbers. In like manner every 
proposition in the Second Book of Euclid may be com- 
pared with some analogous proposition respecting the 
powers and products of numbers. But it is important 
here not to mistake analogy for identity. Some teachers 
seem to think they have proved the theorems in geometry 
when they have expressed the corresponding truths in al- 
gebraic symbols. The use of the word " Square," both 
for a four-sided figure and for the second power of a num- 
ber, is a little misleading ; and Euclid^s use of the terms 
Plane and Solid numbers in his Seventh Book would have 
further mystified students had it been commonly accepted. 
But since Geometry is founded entirely on the recogni- 
tion of the properties of space, and Algebra and Arith- 
metic on those of number, it is necessary to preserve a 
clear distinction in the reasoning applicable to the two 
subjects. Except as showing interesting analogies, the 
two departments of science should be kept wholly separate ; 
and while the truths about the powers and products of 
numbers should be investigated by the laws of number 
alone, geometrical demonstrations should be founded rig- 



364 Lectures on Teaching, 

orously on axioms relating to space^ and slionld not be con- 
fused by the nse of algebraic symbols. 

Onr attention to-day has been necessarily confined to 
Algebra and ^^^^ consideration of a rational way of treating 
Geometry. Arithmetic^ the one department of mathe- 
matics with which^ in a school^ the teacher is first con- 
fronted. But the same general design should be in the 
mind of the teacher^ through Geometry, Algebra, Tri- 
gonometry, the Calculus, and all the later stages of mathe- 
matical teaching. While constantly testing the success of 
his pupils by requiring problems to be worked, he will 
nevertheless feel that the solution of problems is not the 
main object of this part of his school discipline, but rather 
the insight into the meaning of processes, and the training 
in logic. If Algebra and Geometry do not make the stu- 
dent a clearer and more accurate and more consecutive 
thinker, they are worth nothing. And in the new revolt 
against the long supremacy of Euclid, as represented in 
the Syllabus of the ^' Association for the Improvement of 
Geometrical Teaching,^' the one danger we have to fear is 
that the demonstrative exercises will be cut up into por- 
tions too small to give the needful training in continuity 
of thought. Euclid, with all his faults, obliges the learner 
to keep his mind fixed not only on the separate truths, but 
also on the links by which a long succession of such truths 
are held together. It is well to simplify the science of 
geometry, and to arrange — as the authors of the Syllabus 
have done — its various theorems in a. truer order. But 
since it is not geometry, but the mental exercise required 
in understanding geometry, which the student most wants 
to acquire, a system of teaching which challenged less of 
fixed attention and substituted shorter processes for long 
would possibly prove rather a loss than a gain. 



Arithmetic as a Science, 365 

We return finally to the fundamental reason for teach- 
ing mathematics at all either to boys or men. xhetrue 
Is it because the doctrines of number and of maSiemati- 
magnitude are in themselves so valuable, or ^^ teacimig. 
stand in any visible relation to the subjects with which 
we have to deal most in after life ? Assuredly not. But 
it is because a certain kind of mental exercise, of un- 
questioned service in connection with all conceivable sub- 
jects of thought, is best to be had in the domain of mathe- 
matics. Because in that high and serene region there is 
no party spirit, no personal controversy, no compromise, 
no balancing of probabilities, no painful misgiving lest 
what seems true to-day may prove to be false to-morrow. 
Here, at least, the student moves from step to step, from 
premise to inference, from the known to the hitherto un- 
known, from antecedent to consequent, with a firm and 
assured tread ; knowing well that he is in the presence 
of the highest certitude of which the human intelligence 
is capable, and that these are the methods by which ap- 
proximate certitude is attainable in other departments of 
knowledge. N'o doubt your mere mathematician, if there 
be such a person, — he who expects to find all the truth in 
the world formulated and demonstrable in the same way 
as the truths of mathematics, is a poor creature, or to say 
the least a very incomplete scholar. But he who has re- 
ceived no mathematical training, who has never had that 
side of his mind trained which deals with necessary truth, 
and with the rigorous, pitiless logic by which conclusions 
about circles and angles and numbers are arrived at, is 
more incomplete still ; he is like one who lacks a sense : 
for him " wisdom at one entrance " is " quite shut out ; " 
he is destitute of one of the chief instruments by which 
knowledge is attained. 



366 Lectures on Teaching. 

Nor is it enough to regard mathematical science only in 
its far-reaching applications to such other subjects as as- 
tronomy and physics^ or even in its indirect efficacy in 
strengthening the faculty of ratiocination in him who 
studies it. There is something surely in the beauty of the 
truths themselves. We are the richer — even though we 
look at them for their own sakes merely — for discussing 
the subtle harmonies and affinities of number and of mag- 
nitude, and the wonderful way in which out of a few sim- 
ple postulates and germinating truths the mind of man 
can gradually unfold a whole system of new and beautiful 
theorems, expanding into infinite and unexpected uses and 
applications. And as we look on them we are fain to say 
as the brother in Comus said of a kind of philosophy which 
was novel to him, and which perhaps he had hitherto de- 
spised, that it is indeed 

" Not harsh or crabbed as dull fools suppose. 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectaf'd sweets 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 



Geography and the Learning of Facts. 367 



XII. GEOGEAPHY AND THE LEAEMNG OE 
FACTS. 

IivT considering the subject of Geography we shall do well 
to repeat our former question — Why teach it object to be 
at all ? What purposes do we hope to serve kept in view, 
in including it in our course ? We have seen in reference 
to the teaching of languages and of mathematics, that al- 
though there were two distinct purposes to be kept in 
view, — the practical and useful application of those studies 
on the one hand, and the indirect mental discipline 
afforded by them on the other, — in both cases the second 
object was more important than the first. Here, however, 
it is not so. Our main object in teaching Geography is to 
have certain facts known, because those facts, however 
learned, have a value of their own. We live in a beautiful 
and interesting world ; one marvellously fitted to supply 
our wants and to provide us with enjoyment ; and it seems 
fitting, if we would be worthy denizens of such a home, 
that we should know something about it, what 

it looks like, how big it is, what resources it useful as 

,. Til jj?!- TT- iaformation. 

contains, and what sort 01 lives are lived m 

it. To know these things is the first thing contemplated 

in teaching Geography. If there be mental exercise, and 

good training in the art of thinking and observing to be 

got out of these studies, they are the secondary not the 

primary objects which we want to attain. Yet even here 

in the one department of teaching in which mere informa- 



^68 Lectures on Teaching. 

Hon, as distinguished from scientific method or intellec- 
tual training, is relatively of the most importance, there 
are as in other subjects, right ways and wrong, intelligent 
and unintelligent methods. The incidental and indirect 
effect of teaching on the formation of mental habits is not 
to be disregarded ; and though much of the result we hope 
Yet partly ^^ ^^^^ belongs to the region of the memory 
as discipline, only, we shall be all the better for inquiring 
whether there is not also room here for appeal to the 
judgment and to the imagination ; whether, in short. 
Geography may not be a really educational instrument, as 
well as a mass of facts which have to be mastered and 
committed to memory. 

It is the more important to think thus about Geography; 
Geography because I have observed that this is the favor- 
cons^red ^^® subject often with the worst and most 
easy to teach, j^echanical teachers. It is in fact the one sub- 
ject in which the maximum of visible result may be at- 
tained with the minimum of intellectual effort. To give 
a few names of places and point- them out on the map is the 
easiest of all lessons, and, what is more to the purpose, it 
makes a great show when it is learned. And when I ask a 
teacher what is the favorite subject of pursuit in his school 
and he answers Geography, and afterwards I find that what 
is called Geography merely means the knowledge of a num- 
ber of names, and the power to identify their position on 
the map, I always draw a very unfavorable inference re- 
specting the character of that school as a place of intel- 
lectual training ; for I know that such information may 
have been imparted without the least exertion of educating 
power on the master^s part ; and that a good deal of such 
knowledge may easily co-exist, in the learner's mind, with 
complete mental inaction and barrenness. 



Geography and the Learning of Facts, 369 

Nevertheless, it would of course be wrong to undervalue 
the subject, (1) because, if rightly taught, it may be very 
stimulating and helpful to mental development, and (2) 
because it is better to have it taught wrongly than not 
taught at all. For even information as to the position of 
places on the globe is useful to everybody ; useful espe- 
cially to Englishmen, who are fortunate enough to be 
" citizens of no mean city " and to belong to a race which 
dominates a larger portion of the earth's surface, and has 
more varied and interesting relations with distant parts of 
this planet, than any other people in ancient or modern 
times. 

Now in considering how we should teach Geography, we 
may usefully fall back on a principle we have 
had before — that we should begin with what is rive at right 
known and what is near, and let our knowledge 
radiate from that as a centre until it comprehends that 
which is larger and more remote. Thisprincijile is specially 
applicable to the present subject. You want of course to 
give right general notions of the surface and configuration 
of the earth, and of the meaning and use of a map. The 
best way to begin is to draw a little ground-plan of the 
school-room ; and put into it one after another, as the 
children watch you and make their suggestions, the desks, 
the tables, and other articles. Train them to observe you 
as you draw, and to correct you if you put a door into the 
wrong place, or make the line which represents a desk of 
disproportionate length. Then try a map of the surround- 
ings of the school-room, its playground, the street in which 
it stands, the principal roads near, and put in one after 
anoiiier the church, the railway station, a river, a bridge, 
and other familiar objects, at the same time inviting each 
child to put into the map in its proper place his own home. 



370 Lectures on Teaching. 

Thus they will learn the meaning and right use of a map, 
and will feel a good deal of interest when they see it grow 
before them under your hand as you draw it on the board 
and fill in one detail after another. Without some such 
previous explanation and actual manufacture of a plan be- 
fore the eyes of the children, an ordinary printed map of 
Europe or of the world is nothing but a colored enigma. 

So a lesson on Home geography {Heimatlikunde) ought 
H G - to be the first- in a geographical course. Per- 
graphy. j^^ps you will expect that I should be logical, 

and proceed in the same way, next to the general geography 
of the parish, afterwards to that of the county you live in, 
its physical features, its chief towns and industries, then 
to a description of England, afterwards to that of Europe, 
and finally to a general description of the world on which 
we live. But I am not prepared to push a theory — even 
one which is founded, as this is, on a true principle — to 
an impracticable and absurd extent. We must learn to 
think of the various parts of knowledge, not only in what 
seems their natural sequence, but also in the light of their 
relative importance. You cannot measure the value of 
geographical facts by a formula, or say that their impor- 
tance diminishes as the* square of the distance. The earli- 
est geographical ideas may well be those derived from 
home and its surroundings ; but these ideas require next 
to be properly localized, and shown in relation to the size 
and form of the world itself. A good way of doing this 
is first to help the children to refer the map of the 
school and its surroundings to an ordnance map of the 
parish or division of the county ; then to mark this larger 
division on a map of England, afterwards to show England 
on a map of Europe, and then identify it on a globe. Thus 
by degrees you establish a sense of proportion, and help the 



Geography and the Learning of Facts, 371 

child to see his bearings, so to speak, and the place he 
occupies in the universe. And this done, it is well to pro- 
ceed at once, by the help of a globe, to give some very 
general notion of the shape and size of the earth, the dis- 
tribution of land and water, the four cardinal points, and 
the meaning of the simpler geographical terms. 

To make these lessons intelligible you will need pictures 
or diagrams, or better still, you will mould be- 

p , 1 1 . T PIT 1 Lessons on. 

lore the class, m sand or sort clay, a rough earth and 
representation of a range of mountains, or a 
group of mountains and valleys, and will then show how 
water comes out from the glaciers or springs, and some- 
times tumbles over steep rocks, and finds its way down the 
sides, and so forms a river or a lake. You will draw out 
from them that a river will be more rapid in a steep val- 
ley, more sluggish when it flows through a flat country ; 
tha't it will increase in size as it goes on and receives afflu- 
ents, and that the wide openings by which it enters the 
sea are often convenient places for the formation of har- 
bors and for commercial stations, but that sometimes it 
cannot find free course, and is pent up between hills and 
rocks. Then you will explain the points of the compass, 
not of course in the way which some teachers adopt, of re- 
ferring everything to a wall map, so that when you ask 
children to point to the North, they point up to the ceil- 
ing ; but by leading them to know the actual bearings of 
their own school-room and the surrounding streets and 
buildings. This may be done most easily by inviting them 
to step out with you at 12 o'clock on a sunny day, and 
mark iu the playground the line which the shadow of an 
upright stick projects. It is not a bad plan to have this line 
painted on a part of the floor of the school-room, so that 
the points of the compass shall be distinctly known, livI 



372 Lectures on Teachings 

every time N. S. E. or W. is mentioned the scholars shall 
be required to point to it. You will do well to have in the 
school a mariner's compass^ and to draw attention (1) to 
the immense importance, especially to sailors, of knowing 
their bearings at times when neither sun nor stars- are 
visible to indicate them ; and (2) to the wonderful fact 
of the tendency of the magnetic needle always to point 
one way — a fact as you know wholly unique in the whole 
range of physical science, in itself inexplicable, and at the 
same time most curiously adapted to solve one practical 
problem in navigation, wliich as far as we know is abso- 
lutely insoluble by all the manifold resources of ecience 
in other directions. 

These elementary lessons on the size and general con- 
. formation- of the earth may at first include an 
geograpM- explanation of 'the equator and the poles, and of 
the fact that the sun, though seen by us always 
to. the south at noon, is seen by people on tlie equator over 
their heads, and by people living south of the equator to 
the north of them at that hour. But it is not at this stage 
expedient to include any details about meridians, or the 
measurement of latitude and longitude by degrees. After- 
wards it seems best to proceed at once to the general 
geography of England, with especial reference to the 
county in which the scholar lives, to 'it^ boundaries, its 
hills and rivers and principal towns. Next in order should 
come a general description of the chief countries of 
Europe and of the chief British Colonies ; afterwards the 
geography of Scotland and Ireland in* detail, and then 
latitude, and longitude and* as 'much 'else in the way of 
descriptive geography as you have time to give. In French' 
schools, little manuals of what we should call County 
Geography are in extensive use. There is one for each 



• Geography and the Learning of Facts. 373 

Department ; but a little prefatory chapter about the size 
and shape of the world, the points of the compass, and 
the position of France upon tlie globe, forms a common 
introduction to all the manuals alike. There is a map of 
the Department ; an account of its name, size, limits, area, 
its chief industries and geological formation, its natural 
productions, the famous men it has produced, its historic 
associations, and a great number of details, administrative, 
statistical, commercial ; besides engravings of the cathe- 
dral of the chef-lieu, and of anj^ buildings, monuments, 
or scenes for which the Department is famed. The French 
child is generally expected to master this little manual of 
the part of the country in which he lives before he is asked 
to learn topographical details about more distant places. 

So much for the order which seems, on the whole, most 
reasonable for the teaching of geographical 
facts. You will not expect this order to be ^^^IScHF 
prese;'ved in text-books, and there is no subject JJ."mpor- 
in which it is more necessary for you to eman- subject? *^^^ 
cipate yourselves from the domination of 'text- 
books, and to arrange your facts for yourselves. For in 
Eeading and Writing there is at least a sequence of diffi- 
culty ; in Grammar and Arithmetic a philosophical se- 
quence ; and in History the sequence of chronology. But 
in Geography there is no sequence at all. Except by ac- 
cident or association, there is no one topographical fact 
which is more important than any other, or which can 
claim to be learned earlier. To every man his own home 
and his own work make the centre of the world ; and the 
value for him of all information about the rest of the 
world is entirely relative. It is not absolute. Yet text- 
books, after all, cannot recognize this, and are bound to 
give in equal detail facts, some of which, from this point 



374 Lectures on Teaching. 

of view^ are important and some unimportant. The com- 
pilers of such books must arrange their facts in a certain 
order so as to be easy of .reference. So they are fain to 
begin with Europe, then to take Asia, then Africa, then 
America, and finally Australia ; and in the hands of a 
mere routine teacher, the patient school-boy, — " for suf- 
ferance is the badge of all his tribe,^' — is forced to learn 
a good deal about- Denmark and the Caucasus, -about the 
Burrampooter and the Lake Nyanza, before he knows any- 
thing of New York or of our -colonies. 

It is therefore essential that the teacher should exercise 

his own choice and judgment in respect to the 
The teacher n o . , -\ p p ^ • i-i 

to fashion his order 01 importance and oi useiumess m which 

geographical facts are related, and therefore 
to the order in which they should be taught. That order 
will not be always the same. At this moment the geog- 
raphy of the S. E. of Europe and the E". W. border of 
India is more useful to us than the geography of the 
Spanish peninsula. At the beginning of the present cen- 
tury it was otherwise. You have to ask yourselves not 
only what are the facts to which the books and the ex- 
aminers assign prominence ; but what are the facts which 
it behoves a well-instructed and intelligent person to know. 
A great many names and statistics are learned by school- 
boys which no educated person -is expected to know, or 
would, care to remember if he did. To- some extent this 
is inevitable ; but there would not be so large a dis- 
crepancy between the sort of knowledge a school-boy has 
from his lesson-book, and the sort of knowledge of which 
you yourself feel most the need when you mingle in so- 
ciety, or read a piece of contemporary history, if teachers 
thought oftener of the occasions on whiah geographical 



Geography and the Learning of Facts. 375 

knowledge is wanted and the uses to which it has to be 
put. 

I will add some miscellaneous suggestions about geo- 
graphical teaching : 

Take care to have a globe always at hand to correct the 
erroneous impressions which are always pro- use of a 
duced by flat maps^ because they are plane s^io^e. 
representations of parts of a spherical surface, and because 
they are almost necessarily on very different scales. A. 
map of England hangs by the side of one representing Eu- 
rope, and is generally quite as large, and there is no way 
of rectifying the impression except by showing the posi- 
tion and relative sizes of both on the globe. The old globes 
in stands are far less useful than portable globes. I need 
hardly say that a celestial globe is utterly misleading. Use 
the globe also to show how the sun comes on to the me- 
ridian of different places in succession at different times ; 
and from the fact that the earth revolves round its axis 
in 24 hours, deduce a rough general rule for determining 
the times at different places, according to the number of 
degrees of longitude. For example, you point out that in 
our Lat., 51-J N., the value of a degree of longitude is to 
that of a degree of longitude on the great circle of the 
equator as 37 to 60. Say approximately then that as the 
great circle as well as all the parallels of latitude are di- 
vided into 360 degrees, and as the earth revolves in 24 
hours, 15 degrees on any parallel represents an hour's dif- 
ference of time ; but 15° on the equator mean -^^ of 
a circumference of 24,000 miles : hence on the equator 
1000 miles E. or W. represent a difference of one hour in 
time. But in our latitude we may reckon that about' 600 
miles E. or W. represent an hour ; and that thus a tele- 
gram from Constantinople, which is about 30 degrees to 



37^ Lectures on Teaching. 

our E., or about 1200 miles, and which has the sun on its 
meridian two hours before us, may be delivered •in London 
apparently at an earlier hour than that at which it is trans- 
mitted. At this moment, e.g. it is 2 o'clock here, it is 4 
at Constantinople, and it is quite conceivable that a mes- 
sage transmitted thence and dated 4 p.m. might reach us 
by 3. 

Call attention in every case to the scale of a map, and 
Judging dis- gi^^ exercises in judging approximate dis- 
tances, tances. Show e.g. in a map of England what 
number of miles is represented by the length and breadth 
of the sheet respectively, and lead the scholars to exercise 
themselves in determining the approximate distances be- 
tween towns or other places. In fashioning for yourself a 
map, such as has been described, of the parish or district 
in which the school is situated, seek to enlist the services 
of the children themselves ; and invite them to suggest 
other objects or places, and when they make a copy of it, 
require each scholar to put into position and to mark 
specially the site of neighboring buildings, as well as of 
the school, and their proper distances. 

Do not rely wholly on maps with names printed on 
The use of them. The habit of setting children to look 
Maps. vaguely for a place on the map, Avhich merely 

means looking for a certain printed word, is very useless. 
Nothing is learned of the true position of countries by 
this means. The best maps are outline maps on a large 
scale without names ; and best of all those which are 
drawn in outline by the teacher himself on a blackboard, 
and filled in item by item, as each new fact is elicited by 
questions or descriptions. And do not forget that the 
knowledge of the mere names and positions of places is 
worth little or nothing unless the scholar has some inter- 



Geography and the Learning of Fads. 377 

esting associations with them. If you are asked to learn 
the name and position of a place jper -se, the memory re- 
fuses and rightly refuses to retain it, because it has no 
organic connection with anything else you know or wish 
to know. The best knowledge of mere topography is gained 
incidentally, in connection with reading lessons, with les- 
sons on history or familiar objects, with the tracing of 
imaginery voyages and travels. The map should be al- 
ways at hand, and when referred to in order to identify a 
place, of which you are learning something else than its 
mere geographical position, is seen to serve a useful pur- 
pose and helps to impress a fact on the memory. Indeed, 
every time a map is referred to for such a purpose, some- 
thing is done to impress geographical facts on the eye. 
And this itself is a useful lesson. 

Connect from the first Physical geography with that 
which is called Political. By the former of pj^ysjcai 
course is meant the geography of the world as Geograpiiy. 
it would have been if man had never lived on it ; by the 
latter, is meant all those facts which are the result of man's 
residence on the earth. But the second class of facts is 
nearly always to be accounted for by a study of the first. 
The earth is wonderfully designed for human habitation. 
It is our granary, our vineyard, our lordly pleasure-house. 
In some parts nature is bountiful, in others penurious ; 
over some she sheds beauty, in others she offers material 
prosperity : at one place she hides treasure, at another- 
she spreads it on the surface. In some places she invites 
neighboring peoples to intercourse, in others she erects 
impenetrable barriers between them : in some she lures 
the inhabitants to peaceful prosaic industry, in others ter- 
rifies them by displays of awful and inexplicable forces. 
And even of those regions which she seems not to have 



378 Lectures on Teaching. 

designed for our use — the torrid desert, the lonely rocky 
mountains, and the mysterious ice-bound regions of the 
poles, may we not truly say, that they too are part of the 
bountiful provision she has made for our many-sided 
wants ? For they impress and exalt our imagination, they 
minister to our sense of beauty ; and yet at the same time 
they humble our pride, and make us feel that there is 
something more in the world than is immediately and 
easily intelligible to us. They give us in short a sense of 
the mystery, the vastness and the sumptuousness of the 
world, which is very necessary for a right estimate of our 
own true place in it. 

And with such considerations before us we see how 
curiously the mere physical conditions in which 
on^nationai^ ™^^ ^^ placed determine his habits, the life he 
character. leads, the kind of societies he forms, the char- 
acter and the history of different races. You think of 
our own fair island — " this precious stone set in the silver 
sea " — you turn the globe into the position in which Eng- 
land is at the top and in the centre, and you see how ad- 
vantageously she is placed, in the middle of the hemisphere 
of land, ne^r enough to partake of all the advantages of 
Western Europe, but far enough off to encourage in her 
people the sense of independence : with her extensive 
coasts, her excellent harbors, her hardy yet temperate 
climate — a climate of which Charles II. said that it al- 
lowed men to go about their work with less interruption 
and on a greater number of days than in any other country 
in the world ; and you cannot dissociate the thought of 
our insular position, our climate and resources, from 
the character and history of our people. Take Holland 
as another example. It is low, flat, moist ; hence suited 
for pasture rather than tillage ; hence favorable for the 



Geography and the Learning of Facts, 379 

rearing of cattle^ for butter and for cheese ; and because 
so low that the encroachments of the sea can only be pre- 
vented by enormous and costly dykes^ and by incessant 
watchfulness, its inhabitants are dis'tinguished by fore- 
sight and endurance, by thrift and industry ; and because 
for these reasons the scenery is flat, dull, and uninspiring, 
the inhabitants are not distinguished by the wealth of their 
imagination or the splendor of their literature. 

Look again at the vast alluvial plains watered by the 
Nile, the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Yel- 
low Eiver. The soil is rich, the wants of the H^?^*^«^°^^ 

' of the effect 

people few, the inducement to exertion small, of physical 

r r :> conditions on 

There you have found in all ages of the world national Ws- 
a teeming population, agricultural and sta- 
tionary, attached to the soil, conservative in habits of 
thought, easily subjugated and kept in subjection ; and 
there have been appropriately placed the great despotic 
monarchies. On the other hand, look at small maritime 
states like ancient Phoenicia, Greece, and Italy, separated 
by ridges of hills, inhabited by little communities, isolated, 
yet compelled sometimes to fight for their liberty ; hence 
jealous of each other, and hence self -asserting, their his- 
tory full of records of intestine divisions, and of heroic 
struggles for liberty. Here you cannot fail to see a con- 
nection between the free, vigorous life of early Eome and 
of the Etruscan and Greek republics, and the physical con- 
ditions under which the people lived. 

Or contrast with the great communities which have 
formed the Egyptian, the Assyrian, and the Chinese Em- 
pires, the state of the people on the Great Tartar steppes 
where herbage is scanty, where a settled habitation is al- 
most impossible, and where nomadic, and therefore rest- 
less, wild, suspicious, and warlike races find an appropriate 



3^0 Lectures on Teaching. 

home. In like manner you may trace the influence of 
climate in some countries by the way in which it ener- 
vates the laborer, and in others by the way in which it 
impels him to exertion and calls out his higher qualities. 
You may even see how the aspects of nature affect the na- 
tional character in many places : for where physical phe- 
nomena are equable and uniform, as in temperate climates, 
and man has learned how to control nature, you find often 
a resolute, self-reliant people, proud of their strength and 
encouraged to use it ; but in regions subject to frequent 
earthquakes and convulsions, where the aspects of nature 
are formidable, and its phenomena on too vast a scale to 
be subject to human control, you will often find a timorous, 
superstitious people, without enterprise or any of that 
cheerful hope which animates to intrepid discoveries and 
great inventions. 

I must not stay now to pursue this line of inquiry. 
Those of you who would like to see how fertile such re- 
searches are, will do well to read the second chapter of 
Buckle, " on the influence exercised by physical laws over 
the organization of society and the character of indi- 
viduals," and in that chapter you will find, amidst much 
which is crude and speculative, and a few unverified and 
hasty generalizations, many valuable truths and sugges- 
tive hints. In Mr. Grove's excellent little book on Geog- 
raphy you will find similar material. But I want you to 
feel that physical geography is the basis of all true geo- 
graphical teaching ; that here, as in other subjects, it is 
not only the details Avhich are of value, but also the tie 
that binds them together, and that all mere topography 
— all political administration and commercial geography 
must ultimately connect itself with a right understanding 
of such matters as soil, climate, shape, size, geology, and 



Geography and the Learning of Facts, 381 

natural resources. An acquaintance with geology is es- 
pecially helpful in making physical geography understood. 
A teacher who is skilled in this subject, and can make a 
right use of the comparison between a geological map and 
an ordinary map of the same country, will give new mean- 
ing to his lessons ; will be able to say, e.g., how the pres- 
ence of chalk or sandstone may be recognized by the con- 
tour of the hills. 

Another kind of tie by which mere geographical facts 
may be bound together is the historical. Historical 
Associate, therefore, as often as possible, the associations. 
description of places with the memory of events which 
have happened in them. " The man," says Johnson, " is 
little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force 
on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow 
warmer among the ruins of lona." Association between 
the configuration of a region, and a great event that has 
happened in it, is a great help to the recollection both 
of history and geography too. [NTobody can read Livy's 
account of ITannibal's passage over the Alps, Macaulay's 
siege of Londonderry, Mr. Carlyle's account of Frederick 
the Great's campaign in Silesia, or of Cromwell's battle at 
Dunbar, without seeing a new meaning in geographical 
study. And if in the neighborhood of your school there 
is any spot or building rendered illustrious by its associa- 
tion with historical events, seek as far as you can to ex- 
plain that association, and give interest to it. 

As to maps, the use of which is so obvious that they 
need no recommendation from me, I have only 
four observations to make : (1) That they are ^'^* 
of more value after your descriptive lesson has been given 
than before ; (2) That pupils should not always draw the 
whole maps as given in the books, but parts of them 



382 Lectures on Teaching, 

— say the south coast of England^ or the county of York- 
shire — just so much of the map as is necessary to illustrate 
or fix the particular lesson you have given^ such a map 
being often on a larger scale than that in the atlas ; (3) 
That a physical map^ one which merely represents the 
course of water^ the position of coal, the prevalence of 
pasture land, or some one special fact, is often valuable ; 
and (4) That it is never well to permit coloring or orna- 
mentation of any kind until the outline has been carefully 
examined and found to be correct. 

Further, the skilled teacher of geography ought to culti- 
vate in himself the power of vivid and pic- 
vertaide- turesque verbal descriptions of the aspect and 
scr p ion. contour of any country he has seen. You can 
only acquire this power by caring about such details. It 
is well known that Arnold^s lesson, to his Sixth Form on 
history, when he was reading Livy or the Anabasis, were 
wonderfully vivified by his striking descriptions of the 
country in which the events took place. When he 
travelled, he kept his eyes always open, and it is remark- 
able how often in his letters to old pupils, who had gone 
to some distant country, he wrote to them hinting at the 
kind of things which an observant man would do well to 
look for, and asking for the result of such observation for 
his own information and enjoyment. Here is part of such 
a letter written to Mr. Gell, who had gone to reside in 
Tasmania : " I hope you journalize largely. Every tree, 
plant, stone, and living thing is strange to us in Europe, 
and capable of affording interest. Will you describe to 
me the general aspect of the country round Hobart Town ? 
To this day I never could meet with a description of the 
common face of the country about New York or Boston, 
or Philadelphia, and therefore I have no distinct ideas 



Geography and the Learning of Facts, 383 

of it. Is your country plain or undulating, your valleys 
deep or shallow, curving, or with steep sides and flat bot- 
toms ? Are your fields large or small, parted by hedges 
or stone walls, with single trees about them or patches of 
wood here and there ? Are there many scattered houses, 
and what are they built of — brick, wood, or stone ? And 
what are the hills and streams like — ridges or with waving 
summits, — with plain sides or indented with combs, full 
of springs or dry, and what is their geology ? I can better 
fancy the actors when I have a notion of the scene on 
which they are acting/^ 

If you want to know how life-like the description of a 
country can be made, read the description in 
Scott's Antiquary of the sea in a . storm, the of descriptive 
account of the Western Hebrides in Johnson's ^^^^^^ ^' 
Journey, or Black's Princess of Thule, Mr. Bryce's account 
of his ascent of Mount Ararat, or some of the passages 
from Hooker's Himalayan Journals, from Peaks, Passes, 
and Glaciers, or Wills's Wanderings in the High Alps. In 
this department of teaching it is pre-eminently needful 
that the teacher should keep his mind open to the events 
which are going on around him, and try to utilize the in- 
formation which newspapers and new books of travel and 
adventure will furnish. His own experience will also help 
him to give vividness to his lessons. After a foreign 
journey he will invite his class to have a lesson on the 
Ehine, on the aspect of the mediaeval towns of Belgium or 
North Italy, on an Alpine ascent, on the English Cathe- 
drals, or the English Lakes. Photographs and pictures 
from illustrated journals will all help to give reality to the 
impressions you want to convey. 

Do not complain of all this as desultory and unscientific. 
Eemember that this is the one subject in which you are 



384 Lectures on Teaching, 

least bound to preserve any predetermined order^ and in 
which miscellaneous lessons, provided they are vivid and 
interesting, are quite legitimate, and serve the intended 
purpose well. That purpose is to increase the scholars^ 
interest in the world in which they live, to awaken their 
observant faculties, and to help them to recognize the or- 
der, the wealth and beauty of the visible universe. If you 
do not do this. Geography is a very barren subject, even 
though your scholar knows with impartial exactness the 
populations, and the latitude and longitude of the capital 
cities in the two hemispheres, and the names and lengths 
of all the rivers in the world. But if you do this, you may 
be well content with almost any portion of the subject 
which is thoroughly mastered. For he who has been led 
even by accident, or the course of your special experience, 
to examine one or two countries, to get a mental picture 
of their physical characteristics, and to see how those char- 
acteristics affect the situation of the towns, the nature of 
the products, and of the trade, the employments, the gov- 
ernment, and even the idiosyncrasies and the history of 
the inhabitants, will have in his mind a typical example of 
the way in which Geography ought to be studied, and will 
— as the reading and experience of after-life cause him to 
be interested one by one in other countries — know better 
how to obtain his information and to make a right use 
of it. 

Although all these considerations point to the necessity 
of oral lessons, I am far from saying that you should be 
content with the somewhat vague and miscellaneous im- 
pressions which such teaching, if relied upon alone, is apt 
to leave. Text -books, catalogues, tables, statistical state- 
ments, and memory-work have their value, and must be 
resorted to by all who wish to give definiteness to such 



Geography and the Learning of Facts, 385 

lessons. But the time to use them is after the oral teach- 
ings not before it or instead of it. 

Geography is a good type of that class of subject which 
has its chief value as information useful in it- 
self, and which has comparatively few ramifica- 
tions into other regions of acquirement or of intellectual 
life. There is a large mass of serviceable knowledge which 
does not come within the ordinary range of school sub- 
jects, and which yet a school might help to impart — knowl- 
edge about the substances we see and handle, about the 
objects around us, about the things which are going on in 
the world. We must not, in our zeal for those parts of 
instruction which are specially educative, lose sight of the 
value of even empirical instruction about these things. 
To impart facts is not a teacher's highest business, but it 
is a substantial part of his business. It is so, not merely 
because it is disgraceful for a person to be ill-informed 
about common things. It is pitiable to measure the worth 
of any knowledge merely by the degree in which it is a 
credit to gain it, or a discredit to be without it. The best 
reasons for seeking to give to your pupils a good basis of 
facts are that the possession of them is very useful ; that 
all future scientific generalization presupposes them ; that 
they furnish pabulum ioY the thought and the imagina- 
tion ; and generally that life is rich and interesting in 
proportion to the number of things we know and care 
about. 

So at every part of a school course provision should be 
made for instruction in matters of fact which lie out- 
side the domain of the regular book-subjects. What is 
known in the German schools as Natur-'kunde and Erd- 
Tcunde fulfils this description most nearly. But both terms 



386 Lectures on Teaching » 

are restricted as to tlie class of topics they include. The 
information or useful knowledge, now in view,, can per- 
haps be best described by the hybrid term Fad-lore. It 
has, no doubt, a definite educational purpose, and may 
help to develop faculty in a useful way. But its main ob- 
ject is to supply facts, to excite an intelligent interest in 
the common objects and phenomena which surround the 
scholars, to teach them how to see and to handle, and to 
draw simple inferences from what the senses tell them, 
and to prepare the way for the later and more regular study 
of science. 

In Infant Schools this aim is accomplished by means of 
ot)ject-ies- what are called Object lessons. A teacher 
so^s- takes a piece of Coal in his hand and asks the 

children what it is. He asks them to look at it, and tell 
him what they can see, that it is black and shiny ; to handle 
it, and to find out that it is hard, that parts of it are easily 
rubbed off, and that it is of a certain weight. He asks 
what would happen if he put it into the fire, and he finds 
that they can tell him not only that it burns, but that 
there is a gaseous flame at first, afterwards a duller burn- 
ing, and finally nothing left but cinders. He makes them 
tell its familiar uses. Then he asks if they would like to 
know something more about it, and he proceeds to show 
a picture of a coal-mine, to describe the gloom, the heat of 
the pit, the mode of getting down to it and out of it, and 
the dangers to which miners are exposed. He tells them 
how many ages ago all this coal was vegetable matter ; 
he produces a piece of coal, which he has chosen because 
its fossil character is well marked ; he lets the children 
look at and handle it, and then he shows pictures of the 
various trees and plants which formed the material of 
which coal is formed, And at the end his bfack-board pre- 



Geography and the Learning of Facts. 387 

sents a summary of the lesson^ showing in succession the 
qualities, the uses, and the history of coal, and the mode of 
procuring it. 

All this is well, and in the hands of a good teacher fulfils 
valuable purposes. It has in it some of the xheir short- 
characteristics we have insisted on for all good comi^ffs. 
teaching. For it kindles the interest of children by deal- 
ing at first with what is fairly within the range of their 
own experience, and yet before it is finished it carries them 
into a new region distinctly beyond that range. It is 
well calculated to awaken curiosity and to stimulate the 
observing and inquiring faculty. But, then, like so many 
other good things, it is apt to degenerate. Pestalozzi, 
David Stow, and the Mayos have laid down rules ; model 
lessons have been published, and accordingly it is my lot 
to hear a number of so-called object lessons, which are 
very barren of any useful result whatever. Because Dr. 
Mayo's book on object lessons gives a list of the qualities 
of glass — Brittle, Transparent, Hard, Fusible, Useful, 
Inelastic, etc., one is doomed to hear one object after 
another treated in exactly the same way, and to see it 
solemnly recorded on a board that a cow is graminivorous, 
or that an orange is opaque. The blackboard exercise is 
a great stumbling-block to unskilful teachers. They are 
told beforehand at the Training Colleges that it should 
present at the end of the lesson a complete summary, ar- 
ranged under heads, of all that the lesson contains, and so 
they exhibit throughout the lesson a much greater anxiety 
to get the matter on to the board than to get it into the 
understanding of the scholars. Moreover, lessons of this 
kind are apt to be desultory and unconnected, and to be 
given at irregular intervals. And although they occur in 
the Infant Schools with marked advantage under the name 



388 Lectures on Teaching. 

of " object lessons/^ they are often discontinued altogether 
for the whole of the interval between the Infant School 
and the time when the regular teaching of Science begins. 
But through all that interval some conversational lessons 
Subjects for ^"^ familiar objects should be regularly given. 
other'clSfec- They are needed^ as we have said, partly to 
tive lessons, j^eep up that habit of observant interest in 
what is going on in the world, which the Infant School 
tries to convey, and partly to furnish the materials for 
future reflection and generalization. The subjects avail- 
able for this purpose are innumerable ; it will suffice here 
to indicate a few of them : 

{a) Common substances — glass, iron, coal, silk, money. 
(&) 'Natural History— trees,, flowers, animals, wood. 

(c) Food and how to produce it — wheat, wine, oil, meat, honey. 

(d) Manufactures — glass, steel, cloth, pottery. 

(e) Natural phenomena — wind, storms, change of seasons. 

if) Forms of human employment— isuvms,, vineyards, life in a 
factory, a mine, a military station, a studio. 

{g) Construction of simple machines — a hinge, a knife, a lock, 
a watch, a pump, a gas meter, a pulley. 

(1i) Incidents of travel — a voyage, a mountain ascent, a polar 
expedition, a shipwreck. 

(i) Local events — a famine, harvest, an exhibition, a festival, 
the construction of a new railway. 

(fc) Events in National and Municipal life — the opening of Par- 
liament, a general Election, the Assizes. 

(?) Buildings and public monuments — their architecture and 
their history. 

I am far from wishing to assign a prominent place in a 
school-course to miscellaneous topics like these. But some 
room should be reserved for them in your programme. One 
half-hour's lesson in the week will suffice, and if your 
assistants are encouraged to take their turns in preparing 



Geography and the Learning of Facts. , 389 

lessons on subjects with whicli they are specially conver- 
sant^ and will carefully preserve their notes, with a record 
of the day on which the lesson was given, you will find 
many incidental advantages accrue both to them and to 
the school. 

In forming a plan for such a course for a term you will 
do well, without making it so inelastic as to 
exclude any interesting topic which may un- Javea^efi- 
expectedly arise, to have in view that most of JotVvisiWe 
the lessons of this kind ought to serve as helps p"rpose!^ 
and preliminaries to the ultimate teaching of 
science, and should therefore be given in a pre-determined 
order, and with distinct reference to the regular instruc- 
tion in science which is intended to be taken up hereafter. 
The scientific spirit and the scientific method should be 
present, but should not be obtruded. Scientific nomen- 
clature should be sparingly used, and then only when the 
need for it has become apparent. It is well that children 
should be made, even in the lowest classes, to think about 
the formation of a glacier, the boiling of water, or the 
making of iron into steel. But each separate fact of this 
sort should be correlated with some other which is like it, 
so that an elementary perception at least may be gained 
of the nature of physical law. 

Be careful to consider beforehand how much can be 
reasonably taught in the thirty or forty They should 
minutes you mean to devote to the lesson. The ^^^^ unity. 
great fault of most of these lessons is that they attempt too 
much. Consider well that you have need at the end of each 
division of the subject to recapitulate very carefully, and to 
make sure that you have been followed ; and that certain 
xacts must be accentuated by repetition and by writing. 
Do not let any one lesson contain a greater number of new 



39^ Lectures on Teaching, 

truths or thoughts than can be fairly grasped and remem- 
hered in one short effort ; or than can be so fitted together 
as to leave on the mind a sense of unity and completeness. 
Let your blackboard summary grow up under your hand 
Use of a ^^ ^^® lesson proceeds^ and use it rather for 

blackboard, recording your principal conclusions^ at the 
end of each division of your subject^ than as a promise, — 
or menace, — beforehand of what you are going to do. I 
have often heard little collective lessons, in which the 
teacher says "now we are going to speak of the Equali- 
ties ; ' " and then the word " qualities ^' is gravely written 
down on the board ; and one by one various adjectives are 
evolved and written underneath it. All this chills and 
repels the child and destroys his interest in the lesson. He 
does not care about " qualities." He is not prepared to 
enter with you into an investigation of the qualities of a 
thing which at present he knows and cares little or noth- 
ing about. But if you will first interest him in the thing 
and make him care about it ; then discuss in succession 
its various parts, attributes and uses ; there is no harm 
afterwards in recalling what has been learned, and saying, 
'E We have in fact all this while been finding out the quali- 
ties of this thing ; and we will write them down." But it 
is not at all necessary to enumerate all the qualities of 
each object as it comes under review. When this is done, 
the lessons on objects soon become monotonous and very 
wearisome. Each object has some one quality which it 
illustrates better than another. Thus a chief character- 
istic of glass is its transparency, of India-rubber is its 
elasticity, of gold is its ductility ; and in a lesson on each 
of these objects it is well to take the opportunity of calling 
attention to the one or two technical terms which the par- 
ticular object best illustrates. 



Geography and the Learning of Facts. 391 

No single lesson should have many technical or un- 
familiar terms in it. But every good lesson xechnicai 
should at least introduce the learner to two or terms. 
three new technical words^ and make a distinct addition 
to his vocabulary. Every lesson in fact brings to light 
some name or formula which is specially characteristic of 
the new knowledge you are imparting, and will form a good 
centre round which recollections will cluster and arrange 
themselves after you have done. All such characteristic 
terms, names, and formulae should be very distinctly writ- 
ten and underlined ; special attention should be called to 
them, and recalled at the end of the lesson ; and the ques- 
tion may be asked, " What use did me make of this word? ^' 
Not unfrequently, too, the half-dozen words which have 
been written down may be usefully copied down to fur- 
nish material for the full notes that have to be prepared 
as home lessons, and to serve as a reminder of the order in 
which those notes are to be arranged. 

In thinking out the plan of any such oral lesson, it is 
very necessary to break it up into definite por- 
tions, that you may know at what points to re- of each lesson 
capitulate. But it is not necessary to reveal the 
whole of that plan to your scholars. Your lesson must 
have a beginning, a middle and an end, and will be mapped 
out in your mind with this view ; but there is no need to 
divide it ostentatiously into parts beforehand, and say what 
you are going to do. A logical division of the subject is 
necessary for you as part of your plan of workmanship, but 
the consciousness of this division is not always helpful to 
the learner. He is not concerned with the mechanism of 
teaching or with the philosophy of your art. He has to 
be interested, to be led by ways which he knows not, but 
which you know, and have clearly predetermined. But to 



392 Lectures on Teaching. 

begin with any display of the logical framework of your 
lesson is to begin at the wrong end. Not to speak it pro- 
fanely^ do not some of ns — patient hearers in church — 
feel a little rebellious when a preacher announces before- 
hand his intention to divide his discourse into three parts, 
and then to conclude with an appeal and application. We 
feel instinctively that the whole mechanism of firstly, sec- 
ondly, and thirdly, was perhaps very useful to him when 
marshalling his own thoughts in his study beforehand, but 
that it is no business of ours. We are very ready to wel- 
come the facts, the teaching, the reasoning, the inspiration, 
it may be, which he has to give ; but the more he can keep 
his homiletic apparatus in the background the better. 

To go back for a moment to our main subject and re- 
capitulate. We have had before us Descriptive Geog- 
raphy, which aims at helping learners to realize the aspects 
of nature ; Commercial Geography, which concerns itself 
with manufactures and cities, with population and produc- 
tions ; and Physical Geography, which seeks for the truths 
and general laws underlying these mundane phenomena. 
The first addresses itself to the imagination, and is the 
most interesting and attractive. The second appeals to 
the memory, and is the most serviceable in the intercourse 
of life. The third alone enlists the aid of the understand- 
ing, and is for this reason the most valuable as a part of 
disciplinal education, — the only branch of the subject in 
fact which deserves to rank as science. We are to keep 
these three forms of geographical teaching separately in 
view and to take care that each receives the consideration 
which is due to it and no more. 

The recognition of this distinction will not be without 
its value in connection with the whole class of information 



Geography and the Learning of Facts. 393 

of which Geography may serve as a type. I hope hereafter 
to say something more as to the phice which physical and 
inductive science should hold in a high or complete course 
of instruction. Here^ however, I must be content to have 
left on your mind the impression that even in the lower 
department of school life the claims of such knowledge 
ought to be distinctly recognized, and that they are best 
recognized by planning out in regular series conversational 
and pictorial lessons on useful and interesting facts, and 
on what the Germans call Natur-Kunde, but what we may 
more fully describe as the phenomena of common life, 
observed and taught in a scientific way. 



394 Lectures on Teaching. 



XIII. HISTOEY. 

It is clear that there is a sense in which a large part of 
the History taught in schools belongs to the 
wstoric^^ region which we have designated Fact-lore; 
teaching:. because it is learned mainly as information in- 
teresting and serviceable in se. But the proportion of les- 
sons in History which have a disciplinal, moral^ and reflex 
value as part of education is somewhat larger than in Geog- 
raphy. We shall all be agreed that history is not a mere 
narration of facts in their chronological order ; but that 
to know it is to know events in their true causes and con- 
nection, to have our judgment exercised about the right 
and wrong of human actions as well as the sequence of 
events, and to recognize some principles underlying the 
mere facts. 

" History," says Fuller, " maketh a young man to be old 
without either wrinkles or gray hair, privileging him with 
the experience of age without either the infirmities or the 
inconveniences thereof." But the history that will cor- 
respond to this description must be something which far 
transcends in its scope the scanty record of royal alliances, 
of wars, and of dynastic struggles, which constitute the 
staple of school text-books. So unsatisfactory is the intel- 
lectual result of much of the labor spent on teaching his- 
tory to children, that many authorities of great weight ad- 
vocate the omission of the subject from the course of 
school instruction altogether. Herbert Spencer says, 



History, 395 

^^ That kind of information which in our schools usurps 
the name of History — the mere tissue of names and dates 
and dead, unmeaning events — has a conventional value 
only : it has not the remotest bearing on any of our ac- 
tions, and is of use only for the avoidance of those un- 
pleasant criticisms which current opinion passes on its ab- 
sence." And he proceeds to show that the fundamental 
objection to such masses of facts as children are often re- 
quired to learn is that they are undigested and unor- 
ganizable, that there is no unity about them, and there- 
fore no scientific value in them. Now for my part, I do 
not think this a reason for omitting the study of History 
from a school-course, but simply for inquiring how the 
facts can be so taught as to serve a real educational pur- 
pose. 

Nothing is easier than to begin by denouncing the 
school-books. No doubt they are all more or 
less unsatisfactory. Yet it is difficult to know 
how if they honestly fulfil their intended purpose they 
could bo otherwise. They must, of course, be crammed 
with facts ; and as style must always be more or less sacri- 
ficed to the desire for excessive condensation, they are sel- 
dom very readable or interesting. Moreover, since the 
writer of a school-book naturally strives to narrate as large 
a number of authentic facts as his space will contain, it is 
often unavoidable that important and unimportant facts 
will be recorded with the same amount of elaboration, and 
that thus, much which is of little value will be minutely 
set forth. The more systematic text-books also attempt a 
classification of the main facts of each reign, under such 
heads as " birth and parentage of the sovereign, eminent 
men, wars,°^ etc. Now, although this looks methodical, 
and is, indeed, very helpful to the utility of the book con- 



396 Lectures on Teaching. 

sidered as a work of reference, it destroys its value as a 
book to be read. Nobody acquires a knowledge of his- 
torical facts in this formal way. To begin with classifica- 
tion of this kind is to begin at the wrong end. It is only 
after a general interest has been awakened in the story of 
the reign, and after some of the important facts have laid 
hold upon the mind, that the use for such classification 
arises, or the necessity of it is felt. 

In spite, however, of these drawbacks, the use of text- 
books is a necessity, if you would avoid vagueness and 
teach history methodically. Let the book, however, be 
treated as supplementary, and wholly subordinate to oral 
lessons, and be used for reference and home study mainly, 
and then it falls into its proper place. But if it be used 

in class at all let it be read aloud, explained, 
but to be ampliiied, com-mented on, and made vividly in- 

to oral teresting, before you require any of it to be 

teaching. , ^^' ^ rrC x. 4? • • 

learned as a lesson. Then by way of giving 

concentration and definiteness to what you have taught, it 
is not unreasonable to expect the bare facts as given in 
your school manual to be got up, copied out and remem- 
bered, though not of course to be learned by heart in the 
precise words of the book. 

These two objects (1) To make history stimulating to 
_ the imagination, and suggestive to the thought 

tinct aims. of the scholar, and (2) To furnish a good basis 
of accurate and well-arranged facts for future use and 
generalization, will be before you. To care about the first 
object exclusively is to incur the risk of a relapse into 
slovenly teaching, and vague picturesque impressions. To 
be satisfied with the second only is to incur the yet greater 
risk of turning the most interesting and humanizing of all 



History. 397 

studies into a dull and joyless mnemonic, and so of giving 
your pujDil a distaste for History which will last for life. 

Has it ever occurred to you to ask how it is that so many 
of us have a much clearer knowledge of the 
history of the Jews than of our own annals ? a model of 
Is it not because the Bible is in one respect the 
model of all history ? Look at it without reference to its 
higher claims, simply as a piece of narrative. Consider 
how it is liiat it conveys to its readers so clear and full a 
knowledge of Jewish history during many centuries. 
There is, for example, a period of about one thousand 
years, from Abraham to Eehoboam, and how is the history 
of the time told ? We have first the story of the patri- 
arch's personal career. We are led to understand his char- 
acter and his motives ; we see him as the centre of a sceae 
in which pastoral life is attractively portrayed, and which 
affords us glimpses of the patriarchal government, of life 
and manners, and of the social and domestic conditions of 
the time. In like manner we see Isaac and Jacob with 
their families and their environments ; and then the nar- 
rative, disdaining to go into details about lesser matters, 
expands into a copious biography of Joseph, whose per- 
sonal history and fortunes make us incidentally ac- 
quainted with the state of Egypt, its government, its po- 
litical economy, and many facts of great interest, which, 
had they been tabulated in a book of outlines, we should 
not have cared to learn. The history then passes over a 
long uneventful period of nearly 400 years with scarcely 
a sentence, and again becomes full and graphic about the 
Exodus and the journey in the wilderness, investing even 
the details of legislation with a special interest by connect- 
ing them with the person, the character, and the private 
life of the lawgiver, Moses. And thus the story is con- 



39^ Lectures on Teaching. 

tinned, sometimes passing over a long interval of inaction 
or obscurity with a few words of general description, or a 
list of names ; but fastening here and there on the name 
of Joshua, of Gideon, of Samuel, of Saul, or of David, and 
narrating the history of the times in connection with the 
circumstances of his life. The current of human events, 
as it is described in the sacred writings, is not like that 
stream of uniform breadth and depth which text-books 
seem to describe, and which we see often depicted in 
chronological charts. It rather resembles a picturesque 
river, diversified in its aspect as it glides along ; now feeble 
and narrow, now broad and swelling ; hemmed in at one 
part of its course by overhanging rocks, and at another 
spreading out into a vast lake ; becoming again contracted, 
or like the Arcadian river of Alpheus disappearing alto- 
gether from view, then reappearing, and yet flowing cease- 
lessly ; now past a fair city or a noble castle, and anon 
through a vast region which is flat and comparatively bar- 
ren ; continuous but irregular ; possessing unity but not 
uniformity ; inviting the traveller to glide rapidly along 
at one time, and to linger long and tenderly over some 
memorial of vanished greatness at another. 

Who does not see that such a narrative precisely cor- 
responds to the real picture of a nation's history ? In the 
life of a people there are always great epochs of change 
and activity occurring at irregular intervals, and so marked 
Because it ^^^ characteristic, that if they be once under- 
attenSoa^i? ^^^^^' ^^^ ^^^ l^ss^r details and the intermediate 
fixed points, events become intelligible through their means. 
Moreover, the Scriptural story of the people of Israel curi- 
ously resembles the actual knowledge which even the most 
accomplished historical scholar possesses. That it is 
adapted to the needs and conditions of the human under- 



History. 399 

standing will be evident to any one who will take the 
trouble to recall his own experience, and will remember 
how he has secured one after another certain fixed points 
of interest, has grouped round them, little by little, the 
facts which he has subsequently acquired, filled up the 
intervals of time between them by slow degrees, but to the 
last has continued to retain his hold on these fixed points, 
and to refer every new acquisition to some one or other of 
them. 

I do not say that it is possible or even desirable that 
school-books on English History should be made to con- 
form to the Bible type in this respect. It is not safe to 
leave to the compilers of such books the task of determin- 
ing what part of our annals shall be overlooked, and it is 
quite necessary that teachers should themselves exercise 
some discretion in this matter, selecting and adapting their 
historical lessons according to the age and capacity of the 
children, and to the probable duration of their stay at 
school. But if it be indeed certain that careful readers 
of the Bible obtain a truer insight into the character and 
polity, the manners, progress, and national life of a people 
than is to be secured, with the same degree of attention, 
from a modern compendium of English history, the fact is 
certainly a significant one, and will be found to suggest 
some important practical inferences. 

Of these the most obvious is, that it is better to master 
the great and eventful periods than to go on 
continuously in the way suggested by the form Jp^o^cfs?houid 
of a text-book. We said in Geography that t^l^^f^^t 
there was absolutely no sequence for mere 
topographical facts ; that no one such fact had any real 
priority over another except in so far as accident or asso- 
ciation rendered it useful to the learner. Hence it was 



400 Lectures on Teaching. 

expedient for the teacher to enianeipate himself completely 
from the text-books, and to teach the mere facts of polit- 
ical Geography in any order he liked. But in history there 
is of course a natural order, that of chronological sequence; 
and if life were long enough, and if all events and periods 
were equally worth studying, this would be the true order 
of teaching. But as a matter of fact the order of the rela- 
tive significance and value of events is of far more im- 
portance than their chronolgical order, and does not in 
any way correspond to it. 

How then should we begin to teach English History ? 
Not certainly by plunging at once into the 
lessons. story of Julius Caesar and the Druids ; nor by 

giving a number of dates to be learned, to form a frame- 
work for pictures we mean to paint. I should first give a 
short series of lessons either orally, or from a well-written 
reading book if I could find one, with a view to make some 
simple and fundamental historical ideas intelligible — a 
State, a nation, a dynasty, a monaixJi, a pa7'liament, legisla- 
tion, the adminstration of justice, taxes, civil and foreign 
war. Sc]iolars would thus see what sort of matter History 
had to do with, and would be prepared to enter on the 
study with more interest. Then a general notion should 
be given of the number of centuries over which our His- 
tory extends. A general outline of the period of time to 
be covered is necessary in order that each fact as it is 
known may be localized and referred to its due position 
among other facts. Thus a sort of Time-map divided into 
19 centuries is roughly constructed, on the same prin- 
ciple as tliat which would lead the teacher to lay down 
the meridian lines of a geographical map before he drew 
it and filled in all its parts. But as soon as this is done 
the task of selection begins. He is by no means bound to 



History. 401 

follow blindly the conrpe prescribed by the text-book. On 
the contrary, it will be far better to fix upon the most 
characteristic periods, to cause them to be studied with 
fulness and exactness, and to reserve the chronicle of the 
less notable reigns until afterwards. The times of Egbert, 
of the Conqueror, of Elizabeth, of the Protectorate, of 
Anne, and of George III., are turning-points in our his- 
tory. The person who understands these well is, as far as 
history is concerned, a well-informed man, even though he 
is unable to repeat in due order the list of sovereigns, and 
to tell their relationship to each other. For all the higher 
purposes contemplated in the study, a thorough acquaint- 
ance with the state of England in one or two of the most 
eventful periods is of far more value than a superficial 
knowledge of the entire history. The latter may be for- 
gotten. There is no germinating power in it ; it will 
neither grovv when the pupil carries it with him into the 
world of books, and of news, and of conversation ; nor 
furnish material for reflection in solitary hours. But the 
former serves as a nucleus for future acquirement. A 
learner who has been led to pay special attention to one 
period, and to master all its differ entice, carries away with 
him from school no^ only a fund of knowledge which will 
hold together and retain its place in the mind, but also 
right notions of what historical investigation really is, and 
of the manner in which the annals of a period should here- 
after be studied. In short, it is by no means necessary 
that a pu])il should take with him into the world all the 
facts of a school-history, but it is necessary that he should 
be providt;d with a taste for historical reading, and with 
both the power and the disposition to study the subject sys- 
tematically for himself. And this object is far more likely 



402 Lectures on Teaching. 

to be obtained by judiciously selecting and dwelling on the 
prominent epochs than by the ordinary routine method. 
A good deal is often said as to the value of chronology, 
which some have called one of the eyes of His- 
Chronoiogy. ^^^^^ ^^^ Fearon says dates are to History 
what the multiplication table is to Arthmetic. I am^ not 
quite prepared to admit the analogy in this case. The 
multiplication table has two characteristics : It is con- 
stantly wanted in every sum we work ; and every fact in 
it is of equal value. That 7 nines are 63 is just as liable 
to be wanted in Arithmetic as the fact that 2 sixes are 12. 
But of dates we may safely say that there are many degrees 
of usefulness in them, some being very valuable and others 
very worthless. And if the principle I have tried to lay 
down is a true one in regard to the study of periods of 
history, thai principle will lead us to discriminate between 
the dates which we may wisely take some trouble to retain 
as fixed points in the memory, and those dates which none 
but a pedant would value, and which even a well-instructed 
man would not care to remember. I may confess to you — 
though with real deference to the judgment of many who 
think differently — that I do not see much use in knowing 
the date of an event, without knowing something about 
the event itself. If we learn dates as and when we study 
the events, the two together have a meaning and a value ; 
but the date itself and apart is of little worth. If we ex- 
amine our own mental history a little we shall find that 
such chronology as we thoroughly know and has become 
part of our permanent possessions connects itself with 
prominent and interesting events, and has been added to 
piecemeal as our knowledge of history increases. We study 
a fact, become sensible of its importance, and tlien we re- 
member the date. 



History, 403 

For example, in English History the dates of Julius 
Csesar, the first Christian mission, Alfred, the Dates to t>e 
Conquest, John and Magna Charta, Edward Jlcts^e*^ 
III. and Chaucer, Henry YIII. and the Refor- g'd'SeM""* 
mation, Elizabeth and the Armada, the execu- entiy. 
tion of Charles L, the Restoration, the Revolution of 1688, 
the great year of Minden and Quebec, the loss of America, 
the French Revolution, Waterloo, are the fixed centres 
round which a large part of our annals may be said to re- 
volve. 

I know an admirable teacher of History who relies most 
on good oral lessons for teaching this subject ; 
but who has adopted the plan of printing on a use o/tMs 
card, and placing in the hands of every boy, a ^"^"^ ®* 
list containing in bold type about twenty of these dates. 
There is thus a sort of carte du pays under the eye of the 
scholar, and as each fact is named, it is identified with one 
of the dates. Then for an advanced class, there is a larger 
card, which contains some 50 dates in all, the original 20 
being in somewhat larger type, and the minor or new dates 
smaller. In the highest class a third card is used with 
about a hundred dates, or 50 in addition to those al- 
ready known ; the whole being printed in three kinds of 
type to mark the different degrees of importance in the 
events. Thus certain fixed landmarks are put before the 
scholars. As each event is discussed and learned, they 
associate the date with it ; and as they read more of his- 
tory, they establish fresh halting-places, put each new fact 
into its proper interval, and so these intervals become 
smaller and smaller. This seems to me to be the rational 
way of learning dates, as adjuncts to our historical knowl- 
edge, as helps in systematizing and arranging facts which 



404 Lectures on Teaching. 

we already know, not as facts or pieces of knowledge of 
any value in themselves. 

Observe to what absurd devices we are led when we ac- 
cept chronology as a thing to be learned per 
systSsoE se. One teacher maps out the ceiling of a 
c ono ogry. ^oom, and associates dates with particular por- 
tions of a diagram, the form of which is supposed to be 
printed on the learner's brain. Another invents a memoria 
technica, in which certain letters stand for figures. Thus 
you have the first syllable of a sovereign's name, and then 
a syllable made up of letters representing the date of his 
accession. And in some ladies' schools I have met with 
systems of metrical chronology, short-rhymed couplets so 
formed that the initial letters either of the alternate words 
or of the nouns shall represent the years in which the facts 
occurred, e.g. 

" Tlie Saxon is doomed, a Duke England obtains 
And the second William ascendancy gains, 
Tyrrel's arrow attacks and the Sage acquires sway, 
Then Adela's offspring the men long obey." 

In this doggerel the initial consonants in each line give 
respectively the dates 1066, 1087, 1100, and 1135. You 
will observe the extreme difficulty which hampers the poet 
in the construction of lines like these ; and that after all 
the result is not only almost unintelligible, but even the 
names of the two monarchs, Henry and Stephen, referred 
to in the latter lines are not given. It would be easy to 
multiply examples of these systems of artificial memory, 
but to me they all seem open to one fatal objection. We 
are establishing with the names of historical personages 
a number of associations, some absurd, some unmeaning 
and all false, and burdening the memory -of children with 



History* 405 

something in itself confessedly useless, for the sake of 
something useful supposed to be embodied in it. We 
assume that the mechanical contrivance will keep the date 
in the mind, and that afterwards the date will remain 
fixed, and the mere mechanism drop out of sight alto- 
gether. Now experience shows that the opposite result 
happens. Persons who have been taught on these 
mnemonic systems have often told me in later life that 
they have remembered the doggerel verses, or the queer 
syllables, but have forgotten the key. So the end has not 
been attained after all. On the whole, therefore, I have 
little faith in any device for remembering dates, except 
becoming interested in the events to which the dates re- 
late. 

An obvious inference from the view of historical study 
here presented is, that Biography is too much 
neglected, and its value as an adjunct to his- 
tory too little regarded among schoolmasters. Yet every 
one knows how much more attractive is the life of a per- 
son than the history of mere events. There is a sympathy 
and a human interest awakened, when the career of a man 
is discussed, which can never be excited in any other way. 
The great charm of the Bible history, as we have seen, lies 
in the fact that it is a series of biographies, held together 
by a thread of narrative, it is true, but deriving its main 
interest from the circumstance that we see human fortunes 
in progress, human passions at work, and real human char- 
acters, whom we can love, or criticise, or admire. Our 
knowledge of the Bible history is primarily a knowledge 
of Moses, or David, or Paul, and only incidentally of the 
political and social condition of the people among whom 
they lived. Yet, though incidental only, this knowledge is 
very real, and is none the less valuable because it is held 



4o6 Lectures on Teaching. 

in the mind by its association with what we know of the 
chief personages^ and their character and career. A good 
teacher will therefore do well occasionally, when his 
scholars are reading the history of a given period, to inter- 
rupt the regular course, and to select some representative 
man of the epoch, gather together from all sources particu- 
lars respecting him, and give two or three special lessons 
on his life. Suppose, for example, that the life of William 
of Wykeham is taken to illustrate the reign of Edward III. 
Let the -pupils be led by a brief sketch to take an interest 
in the man, to follow his fortunes, to estimate his charac- 
ter. Let them see pictures of the buildings which he 
erected, be reminded of Winchester, of Windsor, of New 
College, Oxford, and of Saint Cross, and so get a glimpse 
of the educational machinery, the architecture, and the so- 
cial habits of the period. Let them be directed to books 
in the library, in which anecdotes and illustrative matter 
may be found. Let them investigate the public and politi- 
cal questions Avith which his life was associated, and then 
be desired to prepare a sketch as full as possible, and in a 
narrative form, embodying all they have learned about 
Wykeham. 

The result of such an exercise will be found to justify 
the interruption of the ordinary historical lessons for one 
or two weeks. A pupil who, in this way, has been directed 
successively to the biography of Alfred, of A^Becket, of 
Chaucer, of the Earl of Warwick, of Cecil, of Bacon, of 
Cromwell, and of Pitt cannot fail to have an extensive ac- 
quaintance with the current history of the times in which 
these men lived ; while the form in which that knowledge 
is acquired will be found better adapted than any other to 
retain a permanent hold on his mind. In the selection of 
the typical man of each age, the teacher will be guided. 



History. 407 

partly by liis own tastes, and partly by the materials at 
his command and the books to which he has access. It is 
of more importance that he should choose some one man 
in whom he is himself interested, and whose biography he 
has the means of making copious and lifelike in his lessons, 
than that he should be guided by any selection which 
another could make for him. 

The materials for such biographical lessons are very 
abundant in our language, and may be found 
with little trouble. Our language is rich in ad- otstuAill in. 
mirable monographs, such as Bacon's Henry ^°^^^p ^• 
VII., Lucy Hutchinson's Memoir of her Plusband, John- 
son's Sir Francis Drake, Earl Eussell's Life of his ancestor 
Lord Eussell, Fox's James IL, Carlyle's Cromwell, 
Southey's Nelson, John Forster's Five Members, Leslie 
Stephen's, or Mrs. Oliphant's Sketches of the 18th Cen- 
tury, Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay. In Walton's exquisite 
book of Lives, in Fuller's Worthies, in Macaulay's Biog- 
raphies, in Lord Brougham's Statesmen of the Time of 
George III., in Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens, and 
in Mignet's Mary Queen of Scots, also, abundant material 
for pleasing and graphic pictures of life and manners may 
be found. Very often, too, a diligent teacher will find that 
by piecing together the facts stated in two or three different 
books about some one person, he will be able, without dif- 
ficulty, to prepare a short lecture or oral lesson, the prep- 
aration and arrangement of which will be as useful to him- 
self as it w^ll prove beneficial to his pupils. If this prac- 
tice be occasionally adopted, it will surprise him to find 
how the facts relating to the history of an age will cluster 
and organize themselves round a great man's name, and 
how systematic the knowledge of history will thus become. 
I have already referred to the use of a library for these 



4o8 



Lectures on Teaching. 



purposes, and to the way in which after the teacher has 
given a brief sketch of the life he may set his pupils to fill 
up that sketch in writing, with all the particulars they can 
glean from different sources, until they have, in fact, partly 
produced the biography themselves. He will afterwards 
require the information thus given to be reproduced by 
the class in a regular form, with the facts arranged chro- 
nologically, or tabulated under various heads, besides an 
estimate of the character of the person whose life has been 
selected. 

A very interesting series of lessons might be given on 
great books, their influence on History, and 
Ireat^wrft- their value (1) as indicative of the thought 
*"* and intellectual movements of the age which 

produced them, and (2) as helping to shape the thought or 
the policy of the age which succeeded : e.g. 



Bede. 


Spenser. 


Dryden. 


Addison. 


Langland. 


Shakespeare. 


Hume. 


Burke. 


Cliaucer. 


Bacon. 


Adam Smith. 


Fox. 


Sir P. Sidney. 


Milton. 


Gibbon. 


De Foe. 


Raleigh. 


Algernon Sidney. 


Swift. 


Southey. 


Hooker. 


Locke. 


Johnson. 


Brougham. 



There is not one of these whose life, with a notice of his 
most important books, would not throw much light on 
the political history and the social life of the time in which 
he lived. So a series of lessons on great inventors, as 

Roger Bacon, Newton, Stephenson, Boyle, Watt, 

would serve a like purpose. 

As another means of giving life and reality to lessons 

„. , . , on this subject, occasional Historical Eeadings 
Historical j ? mi . i 

readings, j^ay Reserve a prominent place, ihe teacher 

may advantageously assemble his class once a week or 



History, 4^9 

fortnight, and give to them a half-hour's reading from 
some book which illustrates the period to which the re- 
cent historical lessons refer. Such readings should gen- 
erally be anecdotal and dramatic in their character, as it 
is more necessary that they should deepen and intensify the 
impression of some one characteristic incident of the time 
than merely go over the ground which has been covered 
by the historical lessons. If a teacher in his own private 
reading keeps his eyes open for passages such as will serve 
this purpose ; if he will systematically mark them, or 
make a memorandum of the places in which they occur, 
it will surprise him to find how they will multiply upon 
him. Not only in books ostensibly written as histories, 
but in many others there will often occur a striking and 
effective passage, which will, if well read, be sure to excite 
interest. 

It would be an endless task to point out the passages in 
Palgrave, Hume, Macaulay, Froude, Clarendon, 
Carlyle, Freeman, Miss Martineau, Guizot, or of historical 
Mr. Knight, which are characterized by special 
interest or pictorial beauty, and which, if read to a class 
that had been recently engaged in accumulating the dry 
details of a given period, would be sure to help the imag- 
ination, and stimulate the intellectual activity and 
strengthen the memory of the pupils. A teach er^s own 
taste will generally be a safer guide in the adaptation of 
.his readings to his ordinary teaching than any formal list 
which could be set down here. But in making his selec- 
tion he need on no account confine himself to grave books 
of history ; one of the Fasten Letters, a naif anecdote from 
Froissart, a gossiping letter of Horace Walpole, a paper 
from the Spectator, an extract from Evel3rn's Diary, a 
chapter of De Foe's History of the Plague, or even a pas- 



410 Lectures on Teaching. 

sage from one of honest Pepys' grotesque confessions, will, 
if wisely chosen, and read at the right time, be found to 
play an important part in fastening the record of some 
great event on the mind. Nor should the stores of our 
poetical and dramatic literature be overlooked. What a 
freshness and life will be given to the dry bones of an 
ordinary narrative of the Wars of the Eoses, if the teacher 
treats the learners at the end of their task with two or 
three well-selected scenes from Shakespeare's Henry IV. 
or VI. Who would not understand the whole life, cos- 
tume, occupation, and morale of Edward III.'s contem- 
poraries all the better for hearing Chaucer's inimitable de- 
scription of some of the Canterbury Pilgrims, or even a 
page of Sir John Mandeville's quaint book of Travels ? I 
cannot expect a mere routine teacher to take all the trouble 
I am recommending, but to all who desire to give to Eng- 
lish history that place in their pupils' affection and interest 
which it deserves, I would say. Make your own miscella- 
neous reading tell upon your school lessons. This is a 
good rule in relation to all subjects. Attention to it serves 
to widen the range of illustration at command, and to 
impart vivacity and force to all the teaching of a school. 
But in history the rule is especially applicable. Let a 
teacher read one or two of Wordsworth's sonnets about the 
introduction of Christianity into England after his class 
has learned the story of Augustine's mission ; or Macau- 
lay's poem on the Spanish Armada, when that subject has 
been studied ; or a pungent passage from Dryden's Absa- 
lom and Achitophel, or Milton's sonnet on Cromwell, or a 
ballad from Percy's Reliques, and the advantage of the 
practice will soon become apparent to him. Within the 
range of such reading also may fairly be included good 
extracts from Ivanhoe or Waverley, from the Last of the 



History. 411 

Barons, from Westward Ho, or Henry Esmond. It may 
be said, perhaps, that all this is not history ; that children 
come tO' school to learn facts, not fictions, and that there 
is danger of relaxing the bonds of intellectual discipline 
by introducing into the school-room material of so un- 
scholastic a character as a play of Shakespeare, or a novel 
of Sir Walter Scott. But to this it may be easily replied 
that my recommendation only extends to the contrivances 
by which school-book work of the ordinary kind is to be 
supplemented, not to any device for superseding it. We 
are not to use the imagination as an alternative, but as 
a help to the memory. 

Nevertheless, there is one sense in which poetry em- 
bodies as much historical truth as history it- xhe poetry 
self. We ought to know, not only what can of history. 
actually be verified as fact, but what has been believed to 
be fact. That Eomulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf, 
that Agamemnon sailed against Troy, that N"uma was in- 
structed in the art of kingship by the. divine Egeria, that 
Arthur gathered a goodly fellowship of famous knights at 
the Eound Table at Caerleon, that William Tell shot at 
the apple on his son's head, may, or may not, be authentic 
facts which will stand the test of historic criticism. But 
they were for ages believed to' be facts. The belief in their 
truth helped to shape the character and the convictions 
of after-ages. They had therefore all the force of truths, 
and they deserve study just as much as facts which can be 
historically verified. From this point of view Sophocles is 
as true and profound as Thucydides ; Shakespeare as true 
as Bacon, and Chaucer as Froissart. Schiller in his Wallen- 
stein is^s much a historian as in his Thirty Years' War. 
Thackeray when he wrote Esmond, after taking pains to 
saturate his own mind with the literature^ the manners^ 



412 Lectures on Teaching. 

and the lij story of the eighteenth century^ was as true a 
historian a^s when he prepared his more matter-of-fact 
critical estimates of the lives of Addison and Steele and 
their contemporaries. When Ben Jonson wrote Catiline 
and Sejanus, or Shakespeare Julus Ccesar and Kinff John, 
they were historians in even a truer sense than if they had 
sought without the aid of the vivifying imagination to give 
a bare narrative of such facts as could stand the test of 
destructive criticism. Considered as a picture of real life, 
is not Sir Walter Scott's Marmion or Ivanhoe as true a 
thing as his History of l^apoleon ? When the author wrote 
the last as mere task-work for the booksellers^ he very 
conscientiously consulted his authorities^ and sought to 
produce an orderly and connected narrative. But when 
he wrote Ivanhoe he studied the manners and incidents of 
the age, and sought to penetrate his own fancy with a 
picture of its doings, and habits, and modes of thinking. 
We will not stop to inquire which is the more interesting 
production: that is a question which has long been settled. 
But which, for all practical purposes, is the truer book, 
and the more important contribution to our history ? 
Surely there is a higher truth than the truth of mere de- 
tail, and that is just what the compiler of annals misses, 
and the man of poetic genius seizes and retains. The power 

" To show the very age and body of the time " 

is a rare one ; it requires not only knowledge of actual 
occurrences, but philosophic insight enough to distinguish 
between characteristic and exceptional events, and imagin- 
ation enough to select and adapt the materials, and to 
give unity and verisimilitude to the whole picture. And it 
is surely as important to us, and as helpful to the studies 
of our pupils, to know what impression the history of an 



History, 413 

age has conveyed to a man of genius, as to knjow what 
facts a laborious compiler may have collected about it.^ 
Do not let us, then, despise the help which poets and even 
novelists can afford us in history. They appeal, in. a way 
in which no mere historian can, to the imagination of chil- 
dren, and to .that love of pictures and of dramatic incident 
which is so strong in early youth. If judiciously and oc- 
casionally used, they make the story of the past a more 
real, living thing, and they may do much to increase the 
interest and pleasure which is felt by pupils in historical 
study. 

And so it will be seen that of the two modes of teaching 
history, that which relies mainly on the dry 
bones of a text-book and that which seeks to relying: on 
clothe these bones with flesh and blood, and teaching 
give to them vivid and picturesque reality, I 
greatly prefer the second. But we must not be insensible 
to the faults of this method if it is pursued alone. It may 
easily become loose and desultory, it is apt simply to 
awaken interest and animation,;, without taking means to 
secure that this interest serves a real educational purpose. 

^ On this point Archdeacon Hare has a pregnant remark : " The 
poet may choose such characters, and may bring them forward 
in such situations as shall be typical of the truths which he wishes 
to embody, whereas the historian is tied down to particular actions, 
most of them performed officially, and rarely such as display much 
of character unless in moments of exaggerated vehemence. In- 
deed many histories give you little else than a narrative of military 
affairs, marches, and counter-marches, skirmishes, and battles, 
Avhich, except during some great crisis of a truly national war, 
afford about as complete a picture of a nation's life as an £ic- 
count of the doses of physic a man may have taken, and the surgi- 
cal operations he may have undergone, would be of the life of an 
individual." 



414 Lectures on Teaching. 

We have before sliown that picturesque teaching sometimes 
leads the pupil to mistake interesting general impressions 
for real knowledge ; and worst of all, that it encourages 
him to indulge in sweeping historical generalization with- 
out knowing accurately the data on which it is founded. 
All this should be known and guarded against. It can only 
be effectually prevented by localizing each fact as it is 
learned in your Time-map, and by building up a fabric of 
dates., names, Acts of Parliament and other details, which 
will sustain and justify the historical impressions you wish 
to convey. 

Keeping this in view, you may be well content to set 
before yourself, as the main object in teaching History, the 
kindling of a strong interest in the subject, rather than 
the covering of a large area of mere information. For if 
you do the second and not the first, your pupil will not be 
likely to pursue the subject for himself. But if you do 
the first and not the second, all the rest may be safely left 
to his own discretion and reading. History, we may ob- 
serve, is the one subject oi school instruction in which 
your pupil can do best without your aid, and which when 
you have once kindled an appetite for it, you may most 
safely drop out of your regular course, and leave to take 
care of itself. 

Lastly, I would urge upon you the importance of lessons 

on the government and constitution under 

th?ffoveSi- which we live. It is absurd to find children 

MiStitStion knowing about the Heptarchy and the Feudal 

ngf an . gyg|-gj^^ ^^^ j^^ j^qI knowing how our present 

Parliament is constituted, and what are its duties and 
functions. Not unfrequently I find in examining candi- 
dates for the public service students who really possess a 
good deal of book-knowledge about the Constitutions of 



History. 415 

Clarendon and the Act of Settlement, showing lamentable 
ignorance as to the way in which laws are made at this 
moment ; telling me, e.g., that all Acts of Parliament 
originate with the Commons and must go to the Upper 
House for sanction. 

In giving a series of special lessons on our laws and con- 
stitution you will not be content with Hallam and Creasy 
and the constitutionalists who seem to think that the whole 
of the History of England resolves itself into a struggle 
between Crown and people, and into the gradual assertion 
of the right of representation, and of what 

Carlyle cynically describes as the liberty to tax the duties as 

/ ^i mi X • T T ■ • ^ ^ weUasthe 

ones sell. That indeed is a very important rig-ntsof^ 

part of English History, but it is not the whole. 
The removal of the impediments to printing and to the 
diffusion of knowledge ; the history of Slavery and of its 
abolition ; the gradual disappearance of religious disabili- 
ties, economic and commercial reform, the imposition and 
ys^orking of the Poor Law ; the provision for National 
Education in the form of ancient endowments, and after- 
wards by public grants ; the reform of the representation ; 
the growth of literature, the extension of our Colonies — • 
all these subjects deserve to be looked at separately, and 
to furnish the material for special lessons in the lecture 
form. Indeed I am disposed to recommend that concur- 
rently with the study of history by periods, you should ar- 
range a series of lessons, according to subjects, on this 
wise : 

The Crown and its perogatives. Ministers. 

The House of Lords. Judges. 

The House of Commons. Magistrates. 

The history and progress of an Municipal Corporations, 

Act of Parliament, Juries. 



41 6 Lectures on Teaching. 

Taxes. The Civil Service. 

A general election. Public Trusts. 

Treason. Tlie administration of towns and 

The Army. parishes. 

The Navy. Guardians of the poor. 

Sucli a course, carefully prepared, and well illustrated 
by historical examples, will have the incidental eSect of 
making the scholars sensible of the responsibility which 
will hereafter devolve upon them as members of a free 
community ; a state which asks the voluntary services of 
her citizens in the administration of justice, in the man- 
agement of public trusts, and in the conduct of public 
business. Every boy should be made to feel that unbought 
services will be required of him as member of parliament, 
magistrate, guardian or trustee, and that it will be honor- 
able to render them. This sense of civic duty seems to 
me the necessary correlative to that consciousness of civic 
rights which Hallam and the constitutional writers are apt 
to dwell on so exclusively. You will find materials for 
such lessons not only in Hallam and Creasy, but also in 
Bagehot and in Sir Erskine May. 

Nor ought we to overlook the necessity for so teaching 
as to inspire our scholars with a love and 
admiration for the country we live in and for 
the institutions by which we are governed. It used to be 
the fashion much more than now for Englishmen, espe- 
cially after dinner, to talk much of our glorious and un- 
rivalled constitution in Church and State. No doubt there 
was in all this an element of insular boastfulness, and per- 
haps a little selfishness and vulgarity. But after all pat- 
riotism is one of the things which our teaching ought to 
cultivate — a rational and affectionate regard for the coun- 



History. 417 

try in which we have been born^ and for the privileges we 
enjoy in it : 

" It is the land that freemen till, 
That sober suited Freedom chose, 
The land where, girt with friends or foes, 
A man may speak the thing he will. 

A land of settled government, 
A land of just and old renown. 
Where freedom broadens slowly down 

From precedent to precedent. 

Where faction seldom gathers head. 
But by degrees to fulness wrought 
The strength of some diffusive thought 

Hath time and space to work and spread." 

And in every English school something at least should 
be done to make the scholars proud of this glorious heri- 
tage^ and to animate them with a noble ambition to live 
lives and to do deeds which shall be worthy of it. 



4i8 Lectures on Teaching, 



XIV. NATURAL SCIENCE. 

It ought to be frankly premised here that I have had 

no special teaching experience on the par- 

physicai sci- ticular siibiect of this lecture such as gives me 
ence in school • t , < t ,• -.at xi i 

education. any right to dogmatize upon it. JN evertneless, 
we may with advantage consider the reasons for including 
such studies in our school-course, and the place they ought 
to hold in it, for it is, after all, out of such considerations 
that all discovery of right methods ought to arise. The 
skilled teacher must look at the whole of the large domain 
of the inductive sciences, those which depend on observa- 
tion and experiment, and ask himself how they are related 
to his special work. Until recently studies of this kind 
were rarely or never recognized as necessary parts of a lib- 
eral education. Even now they are fighting the way to 
recognition by slow degrees and against some opposition. 
The staple of school and university instruction down to 
our own time has consisted of the study of language and 
that of pure science, including mathematics and logic. On 
the part of the great majority of educated men in Eng- 
land, whose own minds had been formed in this way, there 
has been a strong feeling that all true intellectual training 
was to be had in connection with these time-honored 
studies. It is true that new and most fertile fields of in- 
vestigation have been discovered and explored. Geology 
}]as brought to light marvellous facts respecting the history 
of our earth, electricity and magnetism have been applied 



NaturaJ, Science, 4 1 9 

in •anexpected ways to the comfort and convenience of 
man, biologists have investigated the conditions and re- 
sources of life, astronomers have discovered by spectrum 
analysis the nature and even the chemical composition of 
the heavenly bodies ; the chemist, the physicist, the botan- 
ist, have each in his turn revealed to us some hidden forces 
in nature, and taught us how those forces may be made 
available in enriching, beautifying, and ennobling the life 
of man on the earth. 

It must be owned, however, that these researches have 
owed little to the direct influence of our schools 
and colleges. It is not by academically trained J'^^g^cienc?^^^ 
men, as a rule, that the great physical dis- SJeto^&hooi 
coveries have been made. Those who have teacSlnir^*"^ 
made these discoveries have broken away, so to 
speak, from the traditional life of a student and a scholar ; 
have quitted the study of books and betaken themselves 
to the study of things. They have come face to face with 
the realities of life, have seen and handled the materials 
of which the visible world was composed, and thus have in 
time formulated an entirely new body of knowledge, very 
different in kind from that which is to be found in the 
books which are called learned. And hence there has been 
for a time an apparent antagonism between the men of 
learning and the great discoverers, inventors, and experi- 
menters in the world of physical science. Centuries ago 
Socrates taught that the only studies which were of real 
value to man were those which related to his own nature 
and destiny, to his duty as a member of a family or a state, 
to the culture of his own faculties, and to the relation in 
which he stood to the gods and to his fellow-men. As to 
investigations into the order of the heavens or into the 
nature of physical laws, he thought them presumptuous 



420 Lectures on Teaching. 

and sterile. The gods, he thought, had purposely concealed 
such knowledge from men, while in regard to the means 
whereby the material comfort of man might be increased 
he would certainly have dismissed such considerations as 
mean and ignoble, fit only for a tradesman or mechanic, 
but unworthy of a philosopher. 

Some such feeling has survived among learned men, 
even down to our own time. You may find it in such 
utterances as " The proper study of mankind is man." It 
is shown in the greater importance assigned to metaphysics 
and philology, to logic, to mental, moral, and theological 
speculation, and to pure or deductive science, in all sys- 
tems of academic instruction ; and in the distrust felt by 
many, even down to our own time, of experimental science 
as something material, loose, and just a little commercial 
and vulgar. 

In all the recent investigations into the condition of the 
great Grammar Schools nothing was more 
nattSaf ° striking than the position of complete infer- 
science. iority occupied by the study of the physical 

sciences, even in the rare cases in which they were recog- 
nized and admitted into the curriculum. The head-master 
was generally what is called a classical man, and naturally 
regarded success in his own department as the best test 
of a boy's possession of a gentleman's education. The 
teacher of physical science was only an occasional lecturer, 
poorly paid and little considered, and boys who devoted 
much time to that branch of study were understood to have 
lost caste in some way, and to fall short of the best ideal 
which the school sought to set up for its scholars. Nor can 
it be wondered at that cultivated men felt a little reluc- 
tance to admit the physical sciences to honorable recogni- 
tion as an integral part of the school course. For much 



'Natural Science, 421 

of what called itself science was essentially nnscientific in 
its character and its methods of investigation. The 
teachers were often mere specialists, entirely deficient in 
that general cultivation which alone enables a man to see 
his own subject in true perspective and proportion, and to 
teach that subject in the most effective way. A series of 
lectures illustrated by an orrery, on the " sublime science 
of Astronomy ^^ in ladies' schools, or a few amusing ex- 
periments in chemistry in boys' schools, have often repre- 
sented the teaching of science, and have been regarded very 
justly by head-masters and mistresses with a little con- 
tempt. ^^ May I ask you," said Lord Taunton, as chairman 
of the Schools Inquiry Commission, to a schoolmaster who 
in his evidence was giving rather unusual testimony to the 
interest his boys took in physical science, ^^what depart- 
ment of science interests the scholars most ? " "I tliink," 
was the reply, " it is the chemistry of the explosive sub- 
stances." Of course, a bright light and a noise are amusing 
to schoolboys, but their interest in such phenomena is no 
very strong proof that they are learning science in any 
sense, or for any really valuable purpose. 

And all this time there has been an increasing number 
of thinkers and students, who, while not des- Modern 
titute of that general intellectual training SeTia?m?of 
which is to be got in the old beaten track of tMs subject. 
classics and mathematics, have gone out into the wide do- 
main of physical research and found it more fruitful than 
they expected. And they say to those who live in the 
academic world — the world of books and of scholarly tra- 
ditions, " You are mistaken in supposing that this is a 
merely material and practical region, while yours is essen- 
tially intellectual. There is here a body of truth, of the 
'highest practical utility no doubt, but also of the greatest 



42 2' Lectures on Teaching. 

value for educational purposes. The laws and principles 
by which the facts of the material world may be explained 
and co-ordinated are quite as uniform^ quite as beautiful, 
and as far-reaching in their applications as any of the laws 
of language or the truths of mathematics. Moreover, the 
processes of thought required in the study of these ques- 
tions are just as rigorous, just as stimulating, stand in just 
as close a relation to the intellectual needs of a well-in- 
structed man as those involved in the older studies. You 
can make the teaching of physical science as fruitful, as 
thoroughly disciplinal for all the higher purposes contem- 
plated in a liberal education as the teaching of Greek or 
of geometry if you will only first recognize the possibility 
of making it so, if you will encourage skilled and accom- 
plished men to take up this branch of instruction, and are 
ready to give them the same status and encouragement 
which you now give to accomplished teachers of philology 
or history. Enlarge your conception of what a liberal edu- 
cation means. Let that conception include some acquain- 
tance with the actual constitution of the world we live in, 
of the forces which surround us, of the framework of our 
own bodies and the laws of matter and of life, and make 
provision for these things, as well as for those facts and 
speculations which are to be found only in books, and 
which have hitherto usurped the name of scholarship." 

There is surely great force in this appeal, and no one of 
Reasons for ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ power of controlling the edu- 
these claims, cation of the young can properly disregard it. 
We may wish, for our own parts, that some Huxley or 
Tyndall had enunciated this message before we ourselves 
went to school, for then we might discuss with greater ad- 
vantage the true claims of physical science and the place 
it should hold in a school course. But of the legitimacy 



Natural Science, 423 

of those claims there can be no doubt, and it may be well 
for lis to try to analyze them. 

For, consider in the first place the immense practical 
usefulness of some knowledge of physical ^^^ ^j^^ 
science and the number of unexpected applica- JJysicYi^^ 
tions to the use and service of man which are truths, 
found to grow out, not only of every new discovery, but 
of every honest effort to submit old discoveries to the test 
of new observation and experiment. One man studies 
carefully the nature of light, tries experiments with re- 
fracting media, with reflecting instruments, separates the 
rays, ascertains the chemical effect of certain rays on cer- 
tain substances. He does all this perhaps from mere in- 
terest in the discovery of new and beautiful truth, and 
has no suspicion that speculative experiments of this kind 
can serve any immediate practical purpose. But soon it 
appears that what he has done enables us to find some new 
illuminating power, or that out of it grows the whole art 
of photography, with all its wonderful developments, its 
power to record what is beautiful, to represent to us a 
beloved countenance, to register the phenomena of nature, 
and even to aid in the detection of crime. It would not 
be difficult to show that almost every new and valuable 
invention, from the spinning-jenny to the telephone, which 
has increased the control of man over nature, economized 
his time or added to his comfort, is the product of scien- 
tific knowledge, and often of experiments and researches 
which had at first no merely utilitarian purpose, but were 
undertaken with the sole and simple object of discovering 
the secrets of nature, and revealing truth. And there is 
not a single lesson by means of which you can convey to a 
child a strong interest in any one department of physical 
science which may not develop itself, as it works and ger- 



424 Lectures on Teaching, 

minates in his mind, into results and discoveries of unex- 
pected value, and add enormously to the resources and to 
the enjoyments of mankind. 

A second reason for giving to a learner some acquain- 
tance with nature and with the laws which 
Seauty and govern her phenomena is the extreme beauty 
ittJactive^ of the truths themselves. Even if noth- 
ness. ^j^g useful were to be gained by the study of 

science, it would be a shame to pass our lives in this well- 
ordered and harmonious world and catch no echoes of the 
music of its laws ; to be surrounded every day by mys- 
teries, none of which we ever tried to penetrate ; to pos- 
sess a body " fearfully and wonderfully made," and to cast 
no thoughts on its structure, its physiology, the functions 
of its parts, the marvellous adaptation of means to ends ; 
to find one's self conveyed 60 miles an hour through the 
agency of steam, and one's thoughts conveyed a thousand 
times faster by the agency of electricity, and yet to know 
nothing of the nature of these forces or the laws of their 
action ; to walk amid flowers and rocks, glaciers and ava- 
lanches, and to remain uninstructed and untouched by 
them. But it is mainly by the conscious and systematic 
study of natural science that we learn to notice all these 
things and to draw right inferences from them. It must be 
Jcnotvledge of nature after all that is at the basis of a true 
enjoyment of her works, and a true reverence for her Au- 
thor. 



" Is it not," says Herbert Spencer, " an absurd and almost a 
sacrilegious belief that the more a man studies Nature^ the less 
he reveres it ? Think you that a drop of water, which to the 
vulgar eye is merely a drop of water, loses anything in the eye of 
the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by 
a force which if suddenly liberated would produce a flash of light- 



Natural Science. 425 

ning ? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the 
uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not suggest higher associa- 
tions to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously- 
varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals ? Think you that the 
rounded rock marked w4th parallel scratches calls up as much 
poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of a geologist who knows 
that over this rock a glacier slid a million of years ago ? The truth 
is, that those who have never entered on scientific pursuits are 
blind to most of the poetry by which they are surrounded. Who- 
ever has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows not half 
the halo of interest which lanes and hedge-rows can assume. Who- 
ever has not sought for fossils, has little idea of the poetical associa- 
tions that surround the places where imbedded €reasures were 
found. Whoever at the seaside has not had a microscope and 
aquarium, has yet to learn what the highest pleasures of the sea- 
side are." 



But^ after all, the main reason for teaching some 
branch of physical science is to be f onnd in ,3^ r^^^ ^.g^._ 
considering the sort of processes by which the Jig^f^dStiv? 
truths of such science are investigated, and the process. 
faculties of mind which are exercised in the course of 
physical investigations. For in the first place a student of 
any branch 'of natural history or science must learn to ob- 
serve carefully, to use his eyes and to know the difference 
between facts which are abnormal and facts which are 
typical. Then he must come into actual contact with 
realities, must handle objects, must try experiments, must 
question matter and nature closely, must wait and watch, 
must invent new forms of test until he is quite sure that 
he has hold of the true answer. And when he has ob- 
served the phenomena, he has to reason from them in- 
ductively, and pass from particular facts to the general 
laws which underlie and comprehend them. We saw in 
considering the subject of mathematics that certain axioms 



426 Lectures on Teaching. 

and data being postulated the reasoner proceeded deduc- 
tively, and out of them unfolded in due sequence an 
orderly series of particular truths. We saw that mathe- 
matics afforded a discipline in pure logic in passing from 
premise to conclusion, in detecting fallacies in reasoning, 
and generally in deducing special inferences from wide, 
comprehensive, and admitted truths. ' But in the physical 
sciences the mind proceeds in exactly the opposite direc- 
tion. You begin with the particulars, you combine and 
co-ordinate them, and at last, when you have enough of 
them, you arrive at some general proposition which in- 
cludes them all. This generalized truth, which is the 
starting-point in mathematics, is the goal in physics ; and 
whereas researches in the physical sciences tell you how to 
get at your major premise, or your universal truth, it is 
the business of mathematics and of logic to tell you what 
inferences you may deduce from such a truth when you 
have got it. So all investigations into the phenomena of 
nature must begin by the observation of facts. The 
observer must put his facts together, must group them ac- 
cording to their resemblances and differences, and see what 
they have to say for themselves. He must have no pre- 
possessions, no wish to twist the facts into a particular 
direction. His theory or final generalization when it comes 
must have been actually suggested by the facts. 

This kind of procedure is very different from that by 
Inductive which the mind acts in syllogistic reasoning ; 
reasoning:. ^nd it is not wonderful that in the middle ages, 
when people began to study the nature of matter and of 
force, they should have imagined that all truth about these 
things was to be obtained in the same way as the truths 
about geometry, by the methods of Aristotelian logic. 
Hence, even the early physicists hampered themselves with 



Natw al Science. 427 

certain dogmas, or first principles, which seemed to them 
self-evident, that "nothing can act where it is not/' that 
"nature abhorred a vacuum/' that there was somewhere 
in the world a substance which would transmute all metals 
into gold, that some source of perpetual motion could be 
discovered, or that " out of nothing, nothing can come/' 
It was against this kind of assumption that Bacon pro- 
tested. Hypotheses non fingo — I fashion no hypotheses, he 
said. " Man is the minister and interpreter of nature." 
It is his business to find out what she actually says and 
does, and when he has thus acquired data and facts enough 
he may construct upon them a theory that shall fit the 
facts, but not before. 

A well-known line of a Eoman poet expresses the desire 
of mankind to know tbe causes of things, xhe search 
"Felix qui potuit rerum eognoscere causas." for causes, 
You naturally wish to know causes ; but it may be that 
nature will not reveal causes to you at all — but only facts. 
I take up something in my hand. What happens when I 
take it up ? One set of muscles contracts and allows my 
fingers to stretch and to open ; another set of muscles 
contracts as I grasp the object. Why do these muscles 
contract ? Because they were affected by nerves. How 
came the nerves to convey the impulse ? The impulse was 
given from the brain, with which the nerve is connected. 
How did this impulse originate ? In a wish that I formed. 
Do all the motions of the body originate in acts of con- 
sciousness or in acts of will ? No, for some muscles, those 
of the heart, and digestive apparatus, for example, alter- 
nately expand and contract with great regularity without 
any volition of ours. Indeed, we could not by an act of 
will keep up these motions if they stopped, or stop them 
when they were going on. Are these automatic motions 



428 Lectures on Teaching. 

then produced by nervous impulse ? Yes. But whence 
then does the impulse originate ? Not in this case from 
the brain, but from other nervous centres or ganglia 
situated in the spinal cord. Is it then so, that movements 
which are conscious, and are produced or controlled by the 
will, come from nerves which communicate with the brain, 
and that automatic and unconscious muscular movements 
originate in other and inferior centres of nervous action ? 
Yes. 

Observe in all this, I have been seeking to know the 
cause. But I am no nearer knowing the cause at the end 
than at the beginning. Why and how a thought or wish 
of mine which seems wholly spiritual and mental should 
produce the physical result of setting a particular nerve 
in tremulous motion, and why that motion should in turn 
cause a muscle to contract, is as great a mystery to me as 
ever. The only answers to my questions have been state- 
ments of fact. It is so. Such a circumstance is always 
followed by such another circumstance. There is the ante- 
cedent and its uniform consequent. That is all. Of the 
hidden nexus, or necessity which should cause the par- 
ticular antecedent to be followed by the particular conse- 
quent, I know nothing. 

Take another example. I let this pen drop out of my 
and for hand. Why does it fall? Because I did not pre- 

reasons. ^Qni it. But why should it move in that par- 

ticular direction, when I gave it no impulse but merely 
ceased to hold it? Because all objects when disengaged tend 
to fall to the earth. But why should bodies fall towards the 
earth ? Because the earth is a very large mass of matter, 
and smaller bodies are always attracted to large ones. But 
why and how do large bodies become thus attractive ? 
Well, it is observed that throughout nature all masses of 



Natural Science. 429 

matter exercise mutual attraction and that the extent of 
this attraction is determined partly by their mass or den- 
sity, and partly by their distances from each other. Is 
this true of the planets and of the Sun ? Yes. There is 
one broad statement which Kepler formulated in reference 
to this great fact of gravitation. It may be expressed thus, 
Gravity =-- Mass -^ The Distance squared, and is often 
called the law of gravitation. 

Kow you will notice here again that at each step I have 
asked the question Why ? and that at no step 
have I received an answer. The answer I have nor reasons, 
obtained in each case is the statement of a 
fact only ; but then each fact was one broader, more com- 
prehensive and general than that which preceded it. The 
first fact was single ; it was within the range of a little 
child's experience — that the pen fell. The last statement 
of fact^ the great truth of gravitation, was far-reaching, 
sublime, co-extensive with the whole range of the uni- 
verse so far as man can know anything about it at all — a 
statement of fact which includes in its generalization the 
explanation — so we call it — of the movements of the at- 
mosphere, of the rising and falling of the tides, and of the 
march of the planets on their heavenly way. But as a 
matter of fact, nothing has been explained or accounted 
for, no mystery has been solved. Each single fact derived 
from observation has been referred to some larger fact de- 
rived from, wider observation, and the mind has been led 
to correlate a number of separate and diverse experiences 
under one comprehensive statement, to detect unity where 
there was apparent diversity ; to substitute a great gen- 
eralization for a little one, a great mystery for a little one. 
That is all. 



43° Lectures on Teaching, 

And surely that is much. Is it not a large part of the 
education of all of us to be enabled to lift up 
instead of the thoughts from what is petty and transient 
and exceptional and to recognize in its stead 
what is vast^ and typical, permanent and universal ? Truly 
we are the richer for the perception of the larger truth, 
even though it is just as mysterious and inexplicable to 
us as the smaller truth was to the little child. " In won- 
der/' says Coleridge, " all philosophy begins, and in wonder 
it ends.'' The infant looks up into the sky with awe and 
bewilderment. The wisest man, when he knows all about 
the stars and their sizes and their distances and their 
chemical constituents, is fain to say, " When I consider 
Thy heavens the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the 
stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou 
art mindful of him, and the son of man that TKou so re- 
gardest him ? " 

It is also to be observed that the ultimate object to be 
attained in the pursuit of physical science is 
Laws'of'* the perception of what is called a law. We 
Nature? speak of the Law of gravitation or of the cor- 

relation of forces. But the word Law is here used in a 
very special sense. In the sphere of morals and religion, 
it implies prescription and authority on the one side, obe- 
dience and obligation on the other. But in physics the 
word is simply used to describe some statement of ascer- 
tained fact, some general truth derived from observation. 
It is not a law in any other sense. We may talk loosely 
and popularly of obeying the laws of nature. But wdiat we 
mean is simply this — that there are the observed facts ; 
that experience leads us to conclude that what has proved 
to be uniform within the range of our experience will con- 
tinue to be uniform under the same conditions ; and that 



Natural Science. 431 

in planning our own actions, in inventing, contriving, and 
adapting the forces of nature for our own purposes, we 
must take these facts for granted, and not expect them to 
be modified to suit our will. 

And if this be a correct description of the way in which 
truth relating to natural and experimental processes of 
science is attained, we cannot fail to see how J^ired^b ^phy- 
important is the mental discipline through sicai studies, 
which the student must pass in arriving at such truth. He 
must begin by noticing the phenomena, must put together 
and register the results of his observation ; must hesitate 
to generalize too soon, must suspend his judgment until 
he has facts enough, must verify each hypothesis by new 
experiments ; must learn how to make a legitimate gener- 
alization from a multitude of particulars ; must hold his 
generalized truth, even when he has it, only provisionall}^, 
knowing that it too may possibly require to be corrected, 
or at least absorbed by some larger generalization. And 
even when he recognizes a grand and apparently universal 
law, such as that of gravitation, he must leave room in a 
corner of his mind for the possibility of the existence of 
systems and regions " somewhere out of human view ^' to 
which the law of gravitation haply does not extend. 

And do you not see that the processes of mind thus 

brought into action are very nearly akin to 

those by which we are every day forming our cesses avaii- 
. T , T , T 1 , able in all the 

judgments about men and women, about po- intercourse 

litic'al events, about the right and wrong of 

human actions ? When we go wrong on these points it 

is more often through hasty and unauthorized inductions 

than from any other cause. " I do not like foreigners,'^ 

says one ; '' I have been in some parts of the Continent 

where the people were very brutal and dirty." " I do not 



432 Lectures on Teaching. 

think UniYersity examinations any true test of power/' 
says another. " I knew a man who had taken high honors 
and he turned out a complete failure/' " Macaulay was 
very inaccurate : look at the mistakes he made about 
Penn." Do we not see in cases like this illustrations of 
what Bacon was wont to call tlieinductio per enumerationem 
sinipUcem, the generalization too wide and sweeping for 
the facts ; the inability to discern the difference between 
the act or event which is exceptional and that which is 
typical ? Do we not feel that what are wanted here are 
temper^ reserve, breadth of mind, observation wide enough 
to comprehend a great many special details before arriving 
at large general assertions ? And these are precisely the 
qualities of mind which the study of physical science gen- 
erates and encourages. They are not brought into special 
activity either by the study of language or by the study of 
mathematics, valuable as both of them are in their place. 
For the logic of pure synthesis may show you how to de- 
tect fallacies in drawing conclusions from general truths ; 
it is by the inductive process that men must form the fixed 
and general principles on which they reason and act. And 
since for once that a man, goes wrong through reasoning 
badly on given data, he goes wrong ten times through ac- 
cepting data which are unsound and unverified ; inductive 
reasoning is at least as useful a part of mental training 
for the duty of life as the deductive process to which the 
name logic was once exclusively applied. 

Such are some of the weightiest reasons for desiring to 
see experimental and inductive science included in every 
scheme of liberal education. Other reasons might easily 
be multiplied. " Scientific teaching," say the Public 
School Commissioners in their Eeport of 1861, " is perhaps 
the best corrective for that indolence which is the vice of 



Natural Science. 433 

half-awakened minds, and which shrinks from any exer- 
tion that is not like an effort of memory, purely mechani- 
cal." A still more practical and obvious reason was urged 
in the Eeport of the Parliamentary Committee of 1863, 
'^ A knowledge of the principles of science would tend to 
promote industrial progress by stimulating improvement, 
by preventing costly and unphilosophical attempts at im- 
possible inventions, diminishing waste, and obviating in a 
great measure ignorant opposition tO' salutary changes." 

Practical and commercial considerations like these must 
of course not be kept out of view. They have a very inti- 
mate bearing on the education of primary schools and on 
the welfare of the industrial classes generally. One hears 
of the want of knowledge often evinced by artisans ; of 
the trade rules which practically forbid a man 
to put special ability or enthusiasm into his of scientific 
work, and which seem designed to reduce the onskiUed 
working power of the intelligent mechanic to 
the level of that of the unintelligent. Laments are often 
heard of the decay of the old custom of apprenticeship, by 
which a master undertook to give a youth systematic in- 
struction in the art and mystery which he practised ; and 
in consequence of these shortcomings it is said that Eng- 
lish workmen are less successful competitors than they 
once were with the skilled craftsmen of other nations. The 
gravity of these facts is unquestionable, though it is not 
within our present province to discuss tliem except in their 
bearing on school education. Closely connected with every 
form of handicraft there is some kind of elementary 
science — it may be of mechanics, or of chemistry, of the 
properties of matter, or the nature of forces — which ex- 
plains and justifies the rules of that particular handicraft 
and the knowledge of these things would be useful to the 



434 Lectures on Teaching. 

workman, not only in enabling him to do his work better, 
but also in calling out his sympathy and transforming him 
from a mechanical drudge into an intelligent worker. It 
is a humiliating thing to see a grown man content to em- 
ploy year after year methods and forces which he does not 
care to understand. No one who earns his living under 
such conditions can get any enjoyment out of his work. 
Still less is he capable of discovering new methods by 
v/hich in his own special department future workers may 
be helped to economize time, and to do work in a more 
artistic and thorough manner. 

A partial remedy for this evil would be found if the 
study of natural phenomena were included in some form 
in the course of every primary school. One at least of the 
specific subjects of advanced instruction for which in the 
higher classes the Education Department makes special 
grants, should always be attempted in those classes. That 
subject should be chosen rather because the means exist 
for teaching it well, than because of its supposed relation 
to the particular calling likely to be followed by the 
scholar. Any one branch of physical science will serve to 
stimulate the appetite for further knowledge, and to sug- 
gest right methods of investigation in other and more prac- 
tical directions. But when the one branch has been chosen, 
care should be taken that it shall not be treated as a new 
and special accomplishment — a purpureus pannus attached 
by way of ornament at the end of the school-studies, but 
rather as an organic part of those studies, in preparation 
for which a well-arranged series of fad-lessons shall have 
been regularly given in the lower classes. The results of 
introducing children in the last year of their school-life 
to the study of entirely new subjects and to little text- 



Natural Science, 435 

books full of teclmical terms, have proved to be very un- 
satisfactory. 

But the further measures towards the true preparation 
for the calling of a skilled workman lie outside 
the ordinary domain of school-life. It is in or Trade 
special technical schools that the craftsman 
should be helped to study the philosophy of his own trade. 
Such schools under the name of '' Ecoles d'Apprentis " in 
France, or of Technical and Trade Schools in Switzerland 
and Germany, have long existed and done excellent work. 
But with the exception of the Trade School at Bristol 
founded by the late Canon Moseley and the Trade School 
established under the Endowed Schools Act at Keighley, 
very few such institutions have thriven here. Now that the 
old system of apprenticing to masters has died out, the 
best substitute for it is to be found in the establishment 
of schools which shall be accessible to the scholars who 
have left the primary schools, and in which the instruction 
in manual arts, though based on science, shall be con- 
sciously directed to practical ends. 

The function of a Trade or Technical School is rather 
industrial than educational. It is to teach science in its 
application to industry and with a special view tO' the 
needs of the skilled artisan. Its course should inclnde ap- 
plied mechanics, experimental physics, electricity, magnet- 
ism and heat, chemistry, descriptive geometry, the proper- 
ties of matter, measurement of planes and solids, and the 
principles of construction generally. There should be a 
workshop, a museum of tools and implements, a chemical 
and physical laboratory in which the learners can perform 
experiments under supervision ; and the classes should be 
SO arranged and divided that the learner may obtain an 



436 Lectures on Teaching. 

insight into the scientific basis and the practical rules of 
the particular craft which he intends to follow. 

There should be no difficulty in the establishment of 

such schools in all our great industrial cen- 

modern sut)- tres : nor even m devising a liberal system 01 

stitutefor ' ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ■ ^^ 

the old ap- inducements by way ot scholarships or other- 
prentice sys- J ^ 
tern. wise to encourage the most promising scholars 

from the primary school to devote a few months to such 
special studies before entering on the business of their 
lives. Enormous sums have been bequeathed in England 
for the purpose of apprenticing boys to trades. They are 
the survivals from a time when the word " apprentice " 
had a real meaning, and when the provision of such funds 
was one of the wisest forms of benevolence. But the con- 
ditions of our industrial life are so altered that these large 
funds have ceased to serve their intended purpose, and are 
too often only disguised doles of a very mischievous kind. 
The disposition of such funds which will be most nearly 
akin to the intentions of the original donors is obviously 
the establishment of technical schools and of such bursaries 
or scholarships as may facilitate access to them. 

Here, however, we revert to the consideration of scien- 
tific teaching, not for immediate use in trade 
pSysica\in- or commerce, but as a permanent factor in a 
suiS to*^ liberal education. And from this point of view 
it matters very little what branch of such 
science you select — whether astronomy, mechanics, optics, 
general physics, botany, or animal physiology — so long as 
you keep in view the purposes which have to be served in 
teaching them, and the kind of mental discipline which 
rightly taught they are able to give. You cannot attempt 
in a school-course to teach all, or indeed half of these 
things. You may well be reconciled to this conclusion. 



Natural Science, 437 

when you reflect that to teach any one of them well^ so as 
really to kindle the inquisitive and observant spirit, and 
to create a strong interest in watching, recording and co- 
ordinating the facts in some one department of the physi- 
cal world, is to do much to stimulate the desire for further 
acquisition of the same kind when your scholar leaves 
school ; and to bring into play one set of faculties, which 
are not sufficiently exercised in any other part of your 
school-course. 

So it will be well to consider in what department of 
science you or any one of your assistants feel Grounds of 
the strongest interest, or for what kind of tive^not^^*' 
teaching you have the best material and facili- ^^^o^^t®- 
ties at hand, and to select that. For that is after all the 
best subject for you to teach. And if you are in the coun- 
try, or dependent on the services of visiting teachers, and 
Mr. A. undertakes to give lectures on Astronomy and Mr. 
B. on Physiology, I would have you decide between these 
rivals, not by asking which of the two subjects is most 
likely to prove suitable for your scholars, but which of the 
two lecturers is the abler man, the person of wider general 
culture, the more skilful and enthusiastic teacher, the one 
most likely to kindle in your pupil the wish to make fur- 
ther researches for himself. 

!N"or do I think it at all desirable in selecting a subject 
of experimental science for school purposes to Differentia- 
be strongly influenced by considering whether studies for 
your pupils are boys or girls, or what particular girls. 
uses they may happen to make of the knowledge hereafter 
in the business of life. At first sight it seems obvious that 
mechanics, for example, is a specially masculine study, that 
it connects itself with many of the occupations which boys 
are likely to follow. But, after all, the number of men 



43^ Lectures on Teaching. 

who require in their business or profession to be skilled 
in practical mechanics is very small ; and the tme reason 
for teaching such a subject at all is that the learner may 
know something of the properties of matter, the nature of 
statical and dynamic forces, and the way in which knowl- 
edge about the facts of the visible world ought to be ac- 
quired. And all these things have just as close a relation 
to the needs of a woman^s life as to those of a man. Again, 
to a superficial observer, botany seems as if it were specially 
a feminine pursuit. There is a very obvious and natural 
association between girls and flowers. It is pleasant to 
think of young maidens in trim gardens culling posies : 

" The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, 
Which Mary to Anna conveyed," 

But such associations do not at all prove that botany is a 
specially appropriate study for young ladies ; botany con- 
sidered as a science, the investigation of the parts, the 
structure and functions of plants. There is nothing ex- 
clusively feminine in it. The truth is that mechanics and 
botany are both equally fitted in the case of either boys 
or girls to serve the purposes which experimental science 
is meant to serve. All depends upon the way in which the 
subject is taught. 

One very effective crux, or test, by which the difference 
Scientific ter- between a good and a bad teacher of such 
minoiogy. subjects is to be detected, is to be found in the 
use he makes of scientific terminology. To hear some 
teachers of Botany or Chemistry you would suppose that 
to give a thing a hard name was to explain a fact, and 
that the learning how to label things with technical words 
was the learning of science. The note-books of students are 
sometimes found to contain little else but nomenclature 
and lists of terms. Such terms are of course indispensable, 



Natural Science, 439 

but their true value is to fix and crystallize facts and dis- 
tinctions already jDerceived and explained in the first in- 
stance without their help. A technical term is a sign of 
distinction and classification, and presupposes that you 
have already something to distinguish and to classify. 

A good teacher first explains the principle of his clas- 
sification or distinction in untechnical phrase- 
ology ; then shows the need of some word or when to_ 
phrase to describe what has been thus seen, 
and ilien introduces and explains his scientific term. It 
is only when in this way the learner comes to see the need 
of technical phraseology before he is invited to make use 
of it, that you can hope to make the terminology of science 
serve its proper and subordinate purpose, and to be a 
means rather than an end. Thus, as Mr. Henry Sidgwick 
says, " The student is taught not only how to apply a 
classification ready made, but also to some extent how to 
make a classification ; he is taught to deal with a system 
where the classes merge by fine gradations into one another, 
-and where the boundaries are often hard to mark ; a sys- 
tem that is progressive, and therefore in some points rudi- 
mentary, shifting, liable to continual modification ; and 
along with the immense value of a carefully framed tech- 
nical phraseology he is also taught the inevitable inade- 
quacy of such a phraseology to represent the variety of na- 
ture.^' 1 

Having chosen your subject you will do well in this de- 
partment to rely not wholly on book-work, nor 
too largely on oral exposition and demonstra- wenastook- 
tion, but on the actual work of the pupils. ^°^ 
They must be ^brought into close contact with the facts 

^ Essays on a Liljeral Education, p. 195. 



440 Lectures on Teaching. 

and phenomena of nature^ and must be shown how to 
handle objects and investigate their properties^ to make 
mistakes, and to correct them for themselves. It is be- 
coming more generally accepted every day by good 
teachers, not only of Chemistry' bnt of Physics, that the 
best teaching is given in the laboratory rather than in the 
lecture-room. It is not merely by seeing experiments tried, 
but by trying them, that the properties of objects, their 
structure and organization, are best to be learned. But 
here it must be borne in mind that the discipline you want 
to give must be definite and exact ; it is not seeing and 
handling only, but careful measurement if it be Mechanics, 
careful observation if it be Botany or Physiology, and 
whatever it be, careful notes and recordation of the results 
of each experiment as soon as it is made! 

As far as you can, enlist the services of the scholars in 
the manufacture, collection and invention of 
?rin?^and° the objects used in illustration of experimental 
S^nlihfs- lessons. Boxes of classified models and speci- 
trations. mens which are prepared by manufacturers, 

and which are often very costly, are far less effective than 
collections of objects which the scholars themselves have 
helped to form, illustrations of the flora and fauna of the 
district, its geological formation, or manufacturing pro- 
cesses. In two of the best grammar schools which I have 
visited, and in which the greatest attention is paid to Nat- 
ural Science, I found there was a carpenter's shop in which 
the boys themselves made their own apparatus for the il- 
lustration of mechanical powers and for other departments 
of science. Within certain limits, of course, you want all 
the help which Prof. Huxley or Balfour Stewart or Mr. 
Lockyer can give you in the form of books, or which the 
ingenious producer of diagrams, and cabinets of selected 



Natural Science, 441 

models and objects^ can invent for you. But these things 
are all supplements to true teaching and investigation^, not 
substitutes for them. 

After all^ no teaching deserves the name of science which 
is a teaching of facts and operations only. In science you 
must have facts, but you must also have ideas. Unless the 
facts are presented in such a way as to group themselves 
together, throw light on one another, and reveal some 
general law of correlation or of sequence in nature, they 
are not science at all. It is perhaps a misfortune that the 
word " science '^ has become popularly appropriated to a 
particular kind of information, and that astronomy, phys- 
ics, and a group of like subjects should have usurped 
the name of science. But as I have already reminded you, 
the word " science ^^ does not refer to a particular class of 
facts, but to the method of investigating them. It does 
not mean knowledge, but knowledge obtained by right 
principles and in a particular way. You may give a lesson 
on the future tense w^hich shall be in the highest degree 
scientific, and you may give a lesson on the thermometer 
or on the satellites of Jupiter which shall not be science 
at all. 

We cannot attach much educational value to lessons on 
familiar objects and occurrences, unless they 
are given with a distinctly scientific aim, and "Common 
in a scientific manner. It is a frequent sub- necefsVriiy* 
ject of complaint that children, though learn- ^"^^^^^^^• 
ing a great many recondite things in school, are very 
ignorant of things out of doors ; that they do not know, 
e.g., the difference between wheat and barley, or what are 
the names of common birds and flowers. Even in a book 
otherwise so valuable and so pregnant with important sug- 
gestions as Mr. Herbert Spencer's book on Education you 



442 Lectures on Teaching. 

will find a formidable indictment, running indeed throngh- 
out all his pages, against schools because they give book- 
learning and grammar and other pedantries, and do not 
show the scholar how to get a living, nor to preserve their 
health, or what will be their future duties as parents and 
as citizens. 

Such complaints often originate in a certain confusion 
of mind as to what is the proper business of a school. 
Many things are very well worth knowing, which it is not 
the business of a school to teach. The world is a great 
school in which we are to be learning all our life, and he 
who brings into it quickened faculties will learn its les- 
sons well by actual experience. But a child does not come 
to school to be told that a cow has four legs, that fishes 
swim, or that bread is eatable, nutritious, soft, white and 
opaque. Nor does he come there to learn the special busi- 
ness of a farmer, or of an engineer, or of a shoemaker. He 
is there to learn precisely those things which could not be 
so well learned out of doors, and to gain that sort of 
capacity and awakening which will enable him to acquire 
readily the lessons of common life and to turn them to the 
best account. 

If you want to know what is the proper province of the 
school, consider a little what sort of lives your scholars 
lead, and the sort of homes they come from. In the houses 
of the very poor there is probably little talk going on such 
as would draw the attention of children to the most inter- 
esting facts of nature and of daily life. So in schools for 
the poor, conversational lessons on common things, on 
birds and beasts, and on every-day events, are very useful 
and even necessary. If children live in towns and seldom 
see green fields, occasional lessons on the crops, the aspects 
of nature and on rural life are legitimate parts of a school- 



Natural Science, 443 

course. But if children come from orderly and intelligent 
homes, in which they daily hear subjects discussed which 
are worth talking about, and if they know something about 
the country, lessons of this kind are less necessary. Bear 
in mind that anything you can do to make the knowledge 
derived from daily observation more exact and more useful, 
is worth doing, because it helps to make the future study 
of science easier. But do not imagine that everything of 
which it is a shame for a child to be ignorant, is neces- 
sarily your business to teach. The right rule of action 
appears to me to be this : It is no concern of ours to teach 
in schools that which an observant and intelligent child 
would learn out of doors ; but it is our concern so to teach 
him as to make' him observant and intelligent. 

Nor is it incumbent on teachers to anticipate the re- 
quirements of future life by giving the knowl- 
edge suited to this or that employment or pro- spSSrbu?*^ 
fession. To do that would not only be to do ^ 
grave injustice to the child who. did not mean to adopt 
the particular calling ; but it would injure him who 
did, by prematurely specializing his knowledge and di- 
recting his thoughts into a certain money-making groove. 
The duty of the school is to call forth such activities and 
to give such knowledge as shall be available alike in all 
conceivable professions or employments ; and it can do 
this rather by considering oftener what intellectual wants 
are human and universal, than what is the way in which 
any particular child is to get his livelihood. A well-edu- 
cated English gentleman does not, it is true, know so much 
about a steam-engine as an engineer, nor so much about 
the rotation of crops as a farmer, nor so much about book- 
keeping as a city clerk, but he knows a great deal more 
about all three than either of them knows about the other 



444 Lectures on Teaching, 

two ; and this is simply because his faculty of thinking 
and observing has been cultivated on subjects chosen for 
their fitness as instruments of development^ and not on 
subjects chosen with the narrow purpose of turning them 
to immediate practical use. 

There can be little doubt that in the education of the 
future a larger space will be occupied than 
teacMng-^of heretofore by the discipline of the inductive 
^ ^^^' sciences, and it will be well if those of you who 
are entering the profession will accept this as inevitable, 
and qualify yourselves both to meet the want and to guide 
a movement which must for good or evil h'ave important 
consequences. It is for you to take heed that the newer 
knowledge shall be not less educative and inspiriting than 
the old, and that the word " science " shall not degenerate 
into the symbol for what is empirical and utilitarian, nor 
for another kind of memory work. He who sets himself 
to do this has before him vast fields of usefulness. " Lift 
up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white 
already to harvest." It may be that most of the teach- 
ing to be gained from Latin and Greek books has already 
been discovered ; and that the capacities of the older forms 
of academic discipline have already been taxed to the utter- 
most. But in the direction we have been considering to- 
day, the prospect open before the wistful gazer is illimit- 
able. Who can measure the possibilities of induction and 
experiment ? Who knows what large generalizations may 
yet be possible respecting the course and constitution of 
nature, the tendency of history, the conditions of being 
and knowing on this earth, generalizations yet undreamed 
of either by the physicist or the philosopher ? And how 
are these triumphs to be attained if the scientific temper — 
th(- spirit of inquiry, of caution, of reticence, of hope, of 



Natural Science, 445 

enthusiasm, the delight in the perception of new truth, the 
careful and modest estimate of the worth of the truth 
Avhen discovered — is not fostered by our system of educa- 
tion ? For the present it is in Natural Science, in Physics, 
in Chemistry or Botany, that we recognize the region in 
which these qualities can best be cultivated and displayed. 
It is the region nearest to us. But once understood and 
explained it has its relations not only to the mundus visi- 
lilis, but to the whole mundus intelligihilis, to '^ worlds not 
quickened by the sun,^^ to the interpretation of the history 
of man in the ages that are past, to the forecast of his in- 
definite improvement in the ages that are to come. 



4.4^ Lectures on Teaching. 



XV. THE COEEELATION OF STUDIES. 

We have considered in succession the principal instru- 
ments which are in a teacher'^ hands for form- 
thTcunricn- ^^S ^^^ character and training the faculties of 
scSoof scholars, and it may be convenient here to le- 

studies. ^^yl them. There are (1) the teaching of me- 

chanical arts as Reading and Writing, and generally the 
training of. the pupil to action. (2) Instruction in useful 
information or Fact-lore, with a view to give the pupil 
knowledge. Then come the studies which are specially in- 
tended to promote thought ; (3) Language teaching, which 
gives command over the instrument of thought and of ex- 
pression ; (4) Mathematics, which gives the laws of ratio- 
cination from generals to particulars ; and (5) Inductive 
science which gives the habit of observation, and of gen- 
eralization from particular experience. 

We have said that all these ingredients in a school-course 
should be within your view when you try to fashion a plan 
of study either for a primary or secondary school, for boys 
or for girls. We have also given some reasons for think- 
ing that after a time both the first and the second kinds 
of teaching become relatively less important, and that in 
the main, and especially in the later stages of your course, 
the formative and disciplinal and therefore the best parts 
of school-training will be found to^ be composed of the last 
three elements. But we may now go further and say that 
a reasonable regard to all three is more consistent with 



The Correlation of Studies, 447 

thoroughness in- teaching than the limitation to one. The 
maxim, non multa, sed multum, has a plausible M^iitum non 
sound, and seems to furnish a justification to ^^^ta. 
those whose ideal is to secure thorough scholarship in one 
department rather than many-sided culture. But in truth a 
pupil who leaves school, knowing onl}^ one language be- 
sides his own, and having learned it by comparison with 
his own, knovv^ing also one branch of mathematics besides 
arithmetic, and one branch of N'atural Science, is better 
educated — better fitted to receive all the subsequent knowl- 
edge which the experience of life may bring, and to know 
what to do with it, than the classical scholar, the mathe- 
matician, or the scientist pure and simple. 

The good teacher seeks to give to each class of faculty a 
fair chance of development. He knows that it is impos- 
sible to determine with certainty very early in a scholars 
career what is the special department in which he is likely 
to achieve excellence. 'Not is it at all necessary that you 
should know this too early. It has been often said that 
the ideally educated man is one who knows something of 
many subjects, and a good deal of one subject. You are 
safe therefore in fashioning a somewhat comprehensive 
course so long as there is unity in it ; and in making cer- 
tain elements compulsory on all scholars, reserving alter- 
natives and voluntary choice to the later stages of the 
school-life. You thus cast your net over a wider area, and 
prepare yourself to welcome a greater variety of abilities 
and aptitudes. You leave fewer minds to stagnate in apathy 
and indifference, and you discourage the tendency to at- 
tach an exaggerated value to particular subjects, and to 
indulge in the idle boast of learned ignorance. And if this 
be done, then when the time comes for specializing, and 
your pupil comes within sight of the University or of the 



448 Lectures on Teaching, 

business of life^ you will be in a better position to deter- 
mine in what direction and for what reason he will do 
well to direct his energies in a particular channel. And 
in helping the pupil to decide these questions it is well to 
have regard (1) to the probability that the study thus se- 
lected will be thoroughly assimilated, and will in his case 
be earned on far enough to become a factor of special 
value in his intellectual life, and (2) to the chance of his 
putting forth real effort in its pursuit. For cceteris paribus, 
that study is the best for each of us which calls out the 
largest amount of spontaneous exertion, and in which we 
are not recipients merely, however diligent, but willing 
agents. 

Although the threefold division of intellectu_al culture 
to which we have so often referred, should be 
wS^^spropor- clearly before the mind of a teacher, and domi- 
importance^ nate his plans, and though each division may 
of subjects. ^g][] claim an equal share in his attention, it 
does not follow that the time available in a school-course 
shall be given to these departments in equal proportions. 
It takes longer and harder work to achieve the desired in- 
tellectual result in some subjects than in others. A given 
amount of effort tells sooner in the early stages of science- 
teaching than in those of language. You may make even a 
mathematical truth clear and effective for practical pur- 
poses in a shorter lesson than would be needed for instruc- 
tion of equal value on a difficult point in grammar. And 
hence it may be roughly said that if you have say 30 hours 
of a week available for the serious study of disciplinal 
subjects, it is not unreasonable to give nearly half of these 
to language and literature and subsidiary exercises, and of 
the remaining half, rather the larger portion to mathe- 
matics, and the smaller to experimental science. 



The Correlation of Studies. 449 

These considerations may help ns when we find ourselves 
confronted with the great difficulty of modern xhe contend- 
teachers — the claims of too many multifarious too many^ °^ 
subjects. The right rule of action appears to s^Wects. 
be this. As each new subject demands attention, ask your- 
self to what department of school-work it belongs, and 
what present study in that department can be safely 
dropped, or rather absorbed and superseded by the higher 
or new study. Your scheme of study will not probably 
include more than two languages, say French and Latin, 
besides your own. Well, if it becomes necessary to add 
German or Greek, that is a reason for setting aside for the 
present all special exercises in English, except those which 
arise incidentally out of the translation and treatment of 
other languages. If you want to begin a course of logic, 
consider that this is the cognate subject to mathematics ; 
that it addresses itself to the same side of the mind, so to 
speak ; and take the time for it out of that which would 
have been given to some branch of mathematics. If you feel 
disposed to go through a course of lessons on Political 
Economy, or the elements of Political Philosophy, such a 
course may very wisely supersede for a time the formal 
study of History, with which it is closely related. And as 
to the subjects of Physical Science, it is never wise to have 
more than two in hand at a time, and the introduction of 
any one new branch of Physics or Chemistry may fitly take 
the place of another. The two principles to be kept in 
view are these : Do not permit your day^s time-table to 
be cut up into fragments so small as to distract the atten- 
tion of your scholars, and to interfere with due continuity 
of the studies ; and take care that the general proportion 
of time and effort given tO' each of the formative or disci- 
plinal branches of study shall not be substantially dis^ 



45° Lectures on Teaching, 

turbed. We have before insisted on the need for unity of 
purpose throughout the school-course and a regulated har- 
mony in all its parts. This harmony is not disturbed when 
the scholar quits Arithmetic for Algebra, or Geometry for 
Trigonometry, or Botany for Geology, or Writing for 
Drawing ; because in each case the new study is homo- 
geneous with the old, and all that has been learned before 
is made available for new purposes. So long as a new sub- 
ject is a fair intellectual equivalent for its predecessor, calls 
into action the same sort of force and utilizes former 
knowledge, we need not be afraid of introducing it, or of 
abandoning for a time the pursuit of some others which 
we value. 

Even if we do not wholly succeed in this endeavor, it 
The converti- ^^^^ ^® consoling to reflect that, after all, 
teiiectuaP" cental development, though multiform in its 
forces. manifestations, is at bottom one process, and 

that mental powers are not so sharply divisible into inde- 
pendent faculties as it would seem to us when we read books 
of psychology. In the physical sciences there are the doc- 
trines of the conservation of energy and also of the con- 
vertibility of forces. You know that heat is a mode of 
motion, that when you can generate one kind, of force — 
say electricity — it is capable of transmutation into light 
or some other kind of energy, and that radiant energy it- 
self is said to be convertible into sound. And there is a 
similar law of convertibility in intellectual forces. Every 
piece of knowledge honestly acquired turns out to have 
unexpected relations with much other knowledge. Every 
kind of mental power, once evoked and applied to a worthy 
purpose, becomes available for other purposes, and is capa- 
ble of being transformed into power of another kind. Only 
take care that wltat you evoke is really power^ that dt^7^«'/fz? 



The Correlation of studies, 451 

in your hands becomes iiMQerepyeia^ that the subject you 
teach is so taught as to stimulate, to broaden, to reach out 
into regions beyond itself ; and then the question of the 
number of subjects nominally included in your curriculum 
becomes of very small importance. It is only the dull and 
soulless mnemonic after all which is utterly barren of re- 
sult. Compare an artist or musician who is a mere artist 
or musician with one who also brings to his work knowl- 
edge of other things, intellectual breadth and sympathy. 
All that the one has been helped to know and to feel in 
other regions than art becomes transfigured and absorbed 
into his work, and his work is more precious to the world 
in consequence. 

Should any attempt be made to adapt training and 
teaching to the special tastes and capacities of ^^^aptation 
children ? This is a grave question, and one Jo^rse^to^i^i 
which must often have occurred to you. There ^J^^s Mid 
are those who complain, not without seeming aptitudes. 
justice, that our plans treat all children alike, and do not 
sufficiently recognize inherent differences both in the 
amount of power and in the special direction of that power. 
George Combe spent his life in advocating this doctrine, 
and he taught that the true key to the idiosyncrasies of 
children, and therefore to the right and philosophic treat- 
ment of various natures, was to be found in the study of 
the cranium and in what he called the science of Phre- 
nology. He was a man of very clear purpose and strong 
will, and had the art of inspiring his disciples with much 
enthusiasm and admiration. But he never got so far as 
to induce one of them seriously to attempt the classifica- 
tion and teaching of a school on his principles, and the 
experiment yet remains untried. There are others who 
would urge you to study the temperaments of children. 



452 Lectures on Teaching. 

and to give to the lymphatic, the sanguine, and the neryous 
scholars respectively, special and appropriate discipline- 
But I cannot counsel you to concern yourself much with 
such speculations. Fot there is first the danger that per- 
haps your diagnosis of. the case may be wrong ; and then 
there is the further danger that even if it he right the 
treatment you adopt may not be after all the best. It is 
not yet proved either on the one hand that the child with 
a particular liking or talent should have that tendency 
specially cultivated in his education, or, on the other hand, 
that it is always wise to attempt to restore the balance by 
working at the development of those faculties in which 
he is deficient. By all means watch your pupils : see if 
experience shows any particular form of intellectual exer- 
cise to be burdensome or injurious to them. * give prompt 
relief to those who seem in the smallest degree to be dis- 
heartened or overwrought ; and having done this, devise 
the best course you can in the interest of the average 
scholar, and make all your pupils conform to it. Do you 
not in looking back on your own mental life feel thankful 
that you were forced to learn many things for which at 
the time you had no special appetite, and which a scientific 
analyst of your yet unformed character and tastes might 
have declared to be'unsuited to you ? 

In all this, I have said nothing of religious and moral 
teaching. But this is not because I disregard 
andmorai it, but simply because it is impossible to co- 
ordinate it with any of the subjects of which 
we have spoken. To say, for example, that so many hours 
should be given to grammar, so many to science, and so 
many to Biblical or moral lessons, would be difficult, and 
would not, whatever the proportion of time assigned, 
rightly represent our estimate of the relative importance 



The Correlation of Studies. 453 

of this last element. For " Conduct/' as Mr. Matthew Ar- 
nold says, ''is three fourths of life/' and that a human 
being should do what is right and be animated by noble 
motives in doing it, is, as we must all feel, more important 
than that he should possess any given piece of useful in- 
formation, or should have had his understanding trained 
m a particular way. But this does not at all imply that 
you should give in a school lessons on ethics and religion 
corresponding in length or number to your sense of the 
importance of those subjects. 

Many of the best teachers feel that right moral guidance 
can only be had by direct didactic teaching, 
by the learning of formularies of faith and JmJf^c- 
duty, and by lessons consciously directed to the Si'L%his 
enforcement of theological truths. Other °'^"^^- 
teachers, with a no less profound sense of the importance 
of these things, have grave doubts as to the usefulness of 
school lessons on such subjects. They distrust the prac- 
tice of teaching children in the sphere of religion to do 
what they would not be asked to do in any other depart- 
ment of their studies— to affirm what they do not under- 
stand. They dread, above all things, exacting from a 
young child vows or professions of religion which cannot 
possibly correspond to his actual convictions and expe- 
rience. Such teachers would be disposed to rely more on 
the habits which were formed in school, on the spirit in 
which its work was done, and on the sort of moral and re- 
ligious principles which may be learned indirectly in a 
high-toned school, and are seen to penetrate all its corpo- 
rate life, than on formal lessons in divinity. I shall not 
attempt here to pronounce an opinion on a controversial 
question which divides some of the most religious and 



454 Lectures on Teaching, 

high-minded teachers. Two considerations only shall be 
offered on this point. 

The first of them is that the expediency of giving direct 
religious instruction depends a good deal on the character 
of your school^ and on the life your scholars lead out of it. 
In a boarding-school, where you have the whole control of 
the scholars' leisure and are m loco parentis, you will feel 
bound to provide for the religious instruction and wor- 
ship, both on Sunday and on other days, which are usual 
in a well-constituted Christian family. And if you have 
the supervision of a Primary school, you cannot leave out 
of view the fact that many of the children come from 
ho3es in which the name of Grod is seldom heard, and in 
which the parents feel it no part of their duty to convey 
religious instruction to their children or to accompany 
them on Sunday to the house of worship. You will feel 
here that the only glimpse your scholar will have of the 
unseen world, the only teaching about his relation to a Di- 
vine Father, and the only introduction even to the morality 
and the poetry of the New Testament, are to be had irt 
the school. On the other hand, if your school is a day- 
school of a higher kind, and the scholars have parents who 
are accustomed to concern themselves about the religious 
training and conduct of their children ; or even who de- 
liberately object to the inculcation of dogma at so early an 
age, your responsibility is greatly lessened. There is in 
such a case no moral obligation on a master, unless he is 
required to do so by the governors, to make the school a 
propaganda for his own or any other distinctive religious 
tenets. The principle of a " conscience clause," I may re- 
mind you, is not only recognized in all recent University 
legislation ; it is embodied in the Endowed Schools Act, 
in the Elementary Education Act, and is in fact enforced 



The Correlation of Studies^ 455 

on all schools to which public legislation has yet been ex- 
tended in this country ; it is founded on essential justice, 
and deserves to be yet more widely applied. It has cer- 
tainly not proved in any way incompatible with the just 
influence of Christian teachers nor with the maintenance 
of the religious character of English schools. 

Nor must we too hastily conclude that a school is a god- 
less school, because for any reason no direct didactic re- 
ligious lessons are given in it. Some of the weightiest les- 
sons which we can learn in regard to the formation of our 
own character are not learned by way of direct instruction, 
but they come to us incidentally in seeing how religious 
principle shapes the conduct of others, and what it is worth 
when tested by the exigencies of life. The ordinary history 
of a school presents many such exigencies — many oppor- 
tunities for effective moral teaching. Cases of miscon^ 
duct arise which if dealt with calmly, seriously, and by a 
reference to a true and high standard of duty, have a very 
great effect upon the tone and feeling of the school. You 
will not be satisfied always to employ mechanical remedies 
for moral evils : but will direct attention from time to 
time to principles of conduct which have been illustrated 
or violated within the knowledge of your scholars. 

When such incidents occur in the school life, they should 
be utilized. But they will occur rarely, and xhe moral 
they will be all the more impressive if they are lessons 
rare. It is not in the explicit didactic form in Jig^cipime of 
which older people expect to see ethical truths ^ sciiooi. 
and maxims expressed, that moral duties can be best made 
intelligible to a young scholar, and binding on his con- 
science. Much more effective work is done in his case by 
taking care that his surroundings are right and healthful ; 
by watching carefully, though without actually removing 



456 Lectures on Teaching. 

them^ such temptations to evil as come within his reach, 
and by seeing that his daily life gives due scope and op- 
portunity for the exercise of boyish virtues. And the 
schoolmaster, who has a high sense of responsibility in 
this matter, will often ask himself " Are the arrangements 
of my school calculated to promote truthfulness, manli- 
ness, the sense of honor, the feeling of moral obligation ? 
Are the relations of my pupil to me such as to encourage 
him to treat me with confidence ? Do they furnish him 
with occasions of being helpful to others ? Does he take 
advantage of such occasions ? Is he being trained in my 
school not merely to obey when the pressure of authority 
is upon him, but also to use freedom aright when he is a 
law unto himself ? Is the virtue of courage taught not 
as an abstract lesson, but silently in the discipline and 
habits of the school ? " For we may not forget what Aris- 
totle has taught us, that courage is, in one sense, the first 
of all virtues, because it is the one virtue which makes 
all others possible, without which, indeed, many others 
are well-nigh impossible. For all untruth is traceable to 
cowardice. All idleness, desultory reading, extravagance, 
self-indulgence — nearly all, in fact, of the faults which 
you most desire that schoolboys should avoid, — come from 
lack of boldness to say " N"o ^' when the temptation comes, 
and to make a resolute effort to do what is known to be 
right. Trace out the consequence of a nerveless, soft and 
too indulgent discipline, when it comes to bear fruit in 
after-life. Consider what a man is likely to be worth who 
has not resolution enough to resist the public opinion of 
his class, to refuse to pronounce the Shibboleths of his 
party, to abstain from display and expense which he can- 
not afford, to emancipate himself from usages which he 
feels to be narrow and selfish, in his profession or trade. 



The Correlation of Studies, 457 

And when 3^011 think of these things you will see that in 
the microcosm ®f a good school there should be real train- 
ing in courage and self-restraint^ and that such training 
is often as effective when it is connected with the actual 
difficulties and temptations of school life^ as when it forms 
part of a formal scheme of ethical or theological teaching. 
Further, it must be borne in mind that every one of the 
departments of secular teaching with which 
we deal in schools carries with it its own special teaching: em- 
ethical lessons^ holds them in solution, so to sciiooi-ies- 
speak, and concerns itself in its own w^ay with 
some important aspect of human character. We saw in 
considering the practice of simple arts, and in all the me- 
chanical drill which they involve, how the scholar learned 
obedience, exact attention to rule, self-subjugation, def- 
erence for others, and the habit of losing sight of his in- 
dividual, claims, while working towards the attainment of 
results in which others besides himself had a common in- 
terest. The study of Language, too, when rightly con- 
ducted, is essentially a discipline in veracity, in careful 
statement, in abstinence from exaggeration, in thinking 
before we speak. Chaucer's host says : 

" Eke Plato sayetli, whoso can him rede 
The wordes moste ben cosin to the dedej" 

and George Herbert, 

" Lie not, but let thy heart be true to God, 
Thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both.'» 

And the ideal in the mind of both poets you see is the per- 
fect correspondence in a man's character between the thing 
thought, the thing done, and the thing said. There is 



458 , Lectures on Teaching. 

no truer test of a consistent and noble type of life than 
this ; and there is no intellectual training better fitted to 
develop such a type^ than wise discipline in the use and 
meaning of language. In like manner Mathematical 
science has its own special moral lessons, none the less real 
because they are learned by implication only and are not 
formulated in precepts. It is a discipline in exactness, in 
perfect honesty, in patience. And of natural science and 
of all the studies pursued by the method of induction, 
have we not seen that they are a check on rash and hasty 
conclusions, that they teach fairness, breadth of mind, reti- 
cence, suspension of our judgment while the data for 
forming it are insufficient ; and that these qualities are 
very necessary in the right conduct of life ? As to His- 
tory, it is full of indirect but very effective moral teach- 
ing. It is not only as Bolingbroke called it, " Philosophy 
teaching by examples," but it is Morality teaching by ex- 
amples. What, for instance, can be of higher value than 
the training it gives in the estimation of human charac- 
ter ? We are called on to form judgments of men in very 
difficult positions, and we find a flippant and confident 
historian dismissing them with a single sentence, giving 
his estimate on one or two incidents in their lives, or sum- 
ming up their characters in an epigram. Well, we look 
into ourselves, and we think of the people by whom we are 
surrounded, and we know that neither their characters, 
nor our own, admit of being fairly summed up in an epi- 
gram or a single sentence, that he who would know us 
thoroughly and judge us fairly, should know something of 
our powers and opportunities, our surroundings and temp- 
tations, and of the circumstances in which our opinions 
have been formed. History may thus become to those who 



The Correlation of studies, 459 

study it a lesson in charity, and a training whereby we 
may learn how to form right estimates of each other. It 
is essentially the study which best helps the student to 
conceive large thoughts, " to look before and after/' and 
to appreciate, as Mr. J. M. Wilson has wisely said, the 
forces of genius, of valor, of wisdom, and of enthusiasm 
by which the world is moved. 

There is yet another sense in which it is impossible to 
overvalue the moral teaching of History. One looks back 
over the annals of our race, and recalls the past. The 
echoes of far-off contests and of ancient heroisms come 
down to us through the ages. " We have heard with our 
ears, and our fathers have declared to us the noble works 
which God did in their days, and in the old time before 
them.'^ We hear of Philip Sidney, thirsty and dying on 
the field of Zutphen, refusing the cup of water and giving 
it to a poor soldier, with the words, " Thy necessity is 
greater than mine.'' We recall the image of the saintly 
Bishop Ken, on the eve of the Declaration of Indulgence, 
as he stood with six other bishops before James in the 
presence-chamber at Whitehall, "We have two duties to 
perform, our duty to God, and our duty to our king. We 
honor your Majesty, but we must fear God." Or we think 
of Wolfe, the young soldier on the heights of Quebec, spent 
and wounded after a hard fight, aroused by the cry, " They 
run." "Who run?" "The French." "Then I die 
happy." And as we realize these scenes, we know that 
this world is a better world for us to live in because such 
deeds have been done in it ; we see all the more clearly 
what human duty and true human greatness are, and we 
are helped by such examples to form a nobler ideal of the 
possibilities even of our own prosaic and laborious life. 



460 Lectures on Teaching, 

And thus it is quite possible that in a school in which 

, ^. ' few formal lessons are ariven on morals and 

Indirect mor- ^ 

ai teacMng. conduct, the sense of a higher presence^and the 
habitual recognition of the highest motives of action may 
suffuse the whole of the teaching, or run through its entire 
texture like a golden thread. You may have many objects 
in view which cannot be set down and provided for in a 
time-table. You want most of all to exert a right influence 
over the character, and you want, too, to gratify the legiti- 
mate demands of a child's fancy, and to furnish food for his 
imagination. You want to regard him from the first as 
a being not only with duties to fulfil and a livelihood to 
win, but with a life to live, with tastes to be gratified, with 
leisure to be worthily filled. And hence you will never 
satisfy yourself by putting before him the usefulness of 
knowledge, the way in which it adds to the value of its 
possessor in the market of the world, the examinations it 
may help him to pass, the fortune or the credit it may help 
him to win ; but you will rather try to help him perceive 
the beauty and worth of an intelligent life for its own 
sake. It has been profoundly said by Bacon that the light 
of heaven is not only precious to see by, but to see. And 
of knowledge, too, it may be truly said that it is not only 
good to show us the way, and to help us to solve difficulties, 
It is also good, even if we solve no difficulties with it, and 
if we turn it to no definite commercial or other account, 
good if we only delight in its radiance and feel its warmth, 
and have our souls enriched and gladdened by it. " Truly, 
the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for a man 
to behold the sun.^' And a school is a very unsatisfactory 
institution, and fails to fulfil its highest function, if, how- 
ever it may succeed in imparting knowledge, it does not 
also succeed in imparting a thirst for more, or at least a 



The Correlation of Studies. 461 

dawning sense of the inward need for mental and spiritual 
cultivation^ whether such cultivation bears any visible re- 
lation to success in life or not. 

And so the ideally perfect school is not only character- 
ized, as we have said in former lectures, by strict order, by 
right methods of instruction, and by vigorous intellectual 
activity ; it should also be pervaded through and through 
by high purpose, by the spirit of work, by a solemn sense 
of duty, and by the love of truth. Does this seem to some 
of you an unattainable ideal ? The first condition of its 
being attainable is that you shall believe it worthy of at- 
tainment. Look back upon your own school-days, recall 
the memories you have of them. Look forward into the 
life of your pupils, and ask what recollections they will 
have — ^^what recollections you would like them to have, of 
you and of your teaching. These recollections will not all 
be of the lessons you have intentionally given. They will 
depend much upon the spirit in Mdiich your work was 
done, on the motives which were seen to actuate you, and 
on the degree in which you were known to love that knowl- 
edge of which for the time you were in the scholars' eyes 
the chief representative. 

You remember well who it was who once stood by the- 
lake of Genesareth and beckoned Andrew and 
Simon away from their boats and their fishing- 
tackle with the words, " Follow me : I will make you fish- 
ers of men." That is a great parable ; significant of the 
way in which, in all ages of the world, some are called out 
from the meaner and njore mechanical employments of 
life, and invited to take a share in the noblest of all work 
— in fashioning the intellect, the conscience, the character, 
the destiny of futiire generations of men and women. The 



462 Lectures on Teaching. 

call is not audible to all of us in quite the same way. By 
some it is recognized in the circumstances and what seem 
the accidents of life. Some hear it in the whispered in- 
tuitions which tell of personal fitness and aptitude. To 
others the voice comes as a weighty and solemn conviction 
of the importance and usefulness of the work itself. But 
in some way or other the sense of the call ought to be 
present in the mind of every teacher. Without it the 
highest achievements of his art will be unattainable to 
him. With it, he will be in a position to make use of all 
the resources within his reach ; he will have before him 
a true conception both of the road he has to traverse, and 
of the goal towards which he moves. And he will ever 
possess within him one of the strongest of all motives to 
action ; for while he is doing his work, he will habitually 
recognize and will teach his scholars to recognize the un- 
seen presence in their midst of One who is the helper of 
all sincere learners, and the teacher of all true teachers. 



MAY 23 1912 



